Don Gaetz: Thrasher has the skills, smarts and charm to be a great FSU president

I know what it’s like to oppose John Thrasher. I was a very junior senator facing one of Florida’s most respected, influential leaders who believed, on his side, just as strongly as I did on mine.

I felt the force of his muscular personality, his immense grasp of the issues and his access to great resources both human and material. It was the toughest fight of my legislative career.

My fear was, win or lose, I would earn a powerful enemy.

But when the battle was over, the first hand stretched out to me was John Thrasher’s. “Now let’s work together,” he offered. “Jean and I want to get to know you.” In the years since, we have become very close friends — friends who still occasionally see things differently.

Granted, I didn’t threaten to “make his life a living hell” or “become an angry hive and sting him.” I didn’t chant, scream profanities, weep, accuse him of racism or sexism, call him a xenophobe or suggest he would tolerate violence against women.

I went to the mat against John Thrasher on an issue just as important to me as the Florida State University presidency is to others, but I didn’t act like the handful of faculty members and students who embarrassed their university and discredited themselves by how they disagreed.

I wonder how any of us, excoriated as Sen. Thrasher was, would stretch out our hand to “academics” who couldn’t even spell “politican” correctly on a protest sign.

Their excuse is academic freedom. Really, it’s unacademic intolerance. The academicians of antiquity and the great collegiate institutions FSU seeks to emulate would be appalled by the inarticulate outbursts and tantrums that unraveled last Tuesday. These illiberal liberals broke every one of Saul Alinsky’s rules for radicals.

The rap on Thrasher is he’s not an academic. With all due respect, so what? The president doesn’t fine-tune the curriculum or micro-manage who teaches what. He doesn’t grade papers or approve thesis proposals. The president doesn’t even hire the people who do. The chief academic officer is the provost. The deans lead the colleges. The professors teach the courses.

Nor is the president just a fundraiser. The president is the chief executive who deploys resources to achieve performance and the champion who advocates for the university to the taxpayers who own it.

Academic leaders can do that. But are academics the only ones? Let’s check recent Florida examples.

Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan led Florida Atlantic University before becoming chancellor of the State University System. He was so successful that the state of Pennsylvania recruited him to be CEO of its higher education system.

As president of the University of North Florida, ex-Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney has nearly doubled the university’s privately funded endowment.

Politician Betty Castor became president of the University of South Florida. House Speaker T.K. Wetherell, castigated by faculty purists as “not a real educator,” led FSU to national prominence. Ex-legislator Sandy D’Alemberte overcame skepticism to become a beloved FSU president.

Tim Cost, a PepsiCo corporate executive, spent an hour impressing me with how he’s shaking the ivy and raising standards as Jacksonville University’s new president. The JU Board of Trustees didn’t ask him his views on evolution. They were more interested in progress and performance.

None were “traditional academics.” Some had never stood in a classroom. Most were heckled or worse by elements of the campus intelligentsia. Democrats and Republicans, all have been successful presidents.

These aren’t anomalies. The American Council on Education reports “The share of presidents whose immediate prior position was outside higher education has increased. … Much of this growth occurred in the private sector, both nonprofit and for-profit.”

Even Harvard University hired a president who spent much of his career as a political appointee, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

The question for the losers is how they will fare in a Thrasher presidency. Remember, John Thrasher interrupted his FSU education, left behind his young wife and child, and missed the birth of their second child — not for an afternoon of whiny indignation, but to fight for his country, earning two bronze stars.

I have never seen him back up. But I have seen him, as Senate Rules Chairman for four years, earn the public admiration of Democrats and Republicans for his insistence on the rights of the minority.

Take it from someone who’s been on both sides of John Thrasher: When he reaches out his hand, grasp it. I know this great and good man. I know his life is defined by an unrelenting search for unifying solutions among people of good will. When he says, “Let’s work together,” he is offering a covenant. He will always do more than his part. Do your part.

Despite last week’s rancor, I have yet to hear of a single student who has withdrawn from FSU or one faculty member who has resigned. My prediction is that, years from now, even some of the critics will be proud to say they attended or taught at Florida State University during the glory days of John Thrasher’s presidency.

Don Gaetz is president of the Florida Senate, a former superintendent of schools and an FSU parent. He lives in Niceville. Contact him at [email protected]. Column courtesy of Context Florida.