With a state budget in freefall, higher education in Florida is facing an “unnatural disaster.” That’s the eloquent phrase FSU English Professor Erin Belieu has used in a recent commentary in the St. Petersburg Times.
Professor Belieu’s assessment is exactly on target. Ironically, this potential disaster comes at a time when Florida State University is at a high point in terms of student and faculty success. Academically we’ve never been stronger.
Yet here we are, being forced to cut, cut and cut again. We’ve lowered budgets, laid off staff, reduced next fall’s freshman enrollment to its lowest number in years.
The result of all this havoc, Professor Belieu says, ”is that Florida's public university professors are now looking to jump into any reasonable life boat that appears on the horizon - at FSU, practically every faculty member I know is either on the job market or preparing to be so soon. The tap is open wide and the Florida brain drain is on!”
For more information on legislative budget cuts, as well as "brain drain" and the loss of veteran faculty members, listen to FSU Radio Headlines.
In the face of a tragedy like this, we could surrender—or we could fight. Because we are committed to faculty members like Professor Belieu, because we want her colleagues and so many other dedicated faculty members like her to stay right here in Florida, because we cannot stand by idly: We choose to fight.
We choose to fight with one of the university’s most important tools—creativity. We hope you will join us in this battle.
We have a proposal that trades high property taxes for tax reform that guarantees our children a place in higher education. You can see a summary of key points and the full proposal at this site.
We call this proposal Colleges and Universities for Florida's Future (CUFF).
We’re planning to take this proposal to the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, which is meeting this month and will complete its work this spring. We hope that the Commission will support an amendment like ours.
To help ensure that the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission gives full consideration to this new option for financing higher education, please contact members of the Commission with your statement of support. You may wish to use language similar to this suggested message.
Please be aware that you must advocate as a private citizen, on your own behalf. For this reason, before you make any contact with Commissioners, please review the Advocate Guidelines.
For more information about Florida State University's budget and spending constraints, see the "Frequently Asked Questions" and "The State University and Budget Outlook" documents at this web site.
If you have questions or comments, please email Fran Conaway <fconaway@fsu.edu>.
T.K. Wetherell
President, Florida State University