T.K. WETHERELL

Florida State University is returning $11 million in gifts plus accumulated interest to an FSU chemistry professor and his foundation so the university can move forward with the construction of a new and much-needed multidisciplinary chemistry building approved by the chemistry department's building committee.

The university's decision was announced Wednesday in a letter to John L. Winn, Florida Commissioner of Education, asking that the money be returned to chemistry Professor Robert A. Holton's foundation.

The move came in the wake of years of negotiations, court hearings and, most recently, failed mediation between the university and Holton over his demands for a highly specialized chemistry building and high-level professorships.

Holton's gifts would have funded only about 10 percent of the total cost of the project he proposed - a plan to construct a chemistry building, fund his own research, and set up an endowment for chairs and professorships of his choosing, all dedicated to his area of expertise, synthetic organic chemistry. The rest would have to come from taxpayer dollars.

"One of the last things any university president wants is to have to return a gift to a donor," FSU President T.K. Wetherell said. "But when a gift has so many strings attached that it ties up the progress of the university, then it is our ethical and fiscal responsibility to take this action.

"As the person who synthesized the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, Dr. Holton is an outstanding scientist, but no single professor, no matter how accomplished, has the right to dictate the direction a public university must take, especially at the cost of other vitally important areas of research," Wetherell continued.

"No professor has the right to create a shrine to his own research area with public funds. We have an obligation to protect the taxpayers' investment in higher education, and that includes the design, construction and cost of research facilities. We cannot and will not shirk our duties as fiscally responsible administrators of this public university.

"We have worked long and hard to find a compromise with Dr. Holton, but his demands remain onerous. It's time for our administrators and Dr. Holton to agree that we disagree, and just return the money."

In the early 1990s, Holton discovered a synthetic version of a chemotherapy drug that was marketed under the name Taxol. It eventually brought millions of dollars to Holton, to his MDS Research Foundation Inc., and to Florida State.

Seven years ago, during the administration of former FSU President Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, MDS made the first of two gifts to the university totaling $11 million. The second gift was made in 2002. According to Wetherell and other university officials, the strings attached to the second gift got out of hand. Among Holton's demands:

• A 165,000-square-foot building that would house only a fraction of the university's chemistry and biochemistry faculty, with the vast majority of the proposed building dedicated to use by Holton or his designees.
• A customized building not flexible enough to adapt to future university needs.
• Establishment of Holton-controlled faculty positions in highly specific research areas, with predetermined high salary levels paid by the university.
• Lab and office space that would far exceed national norms.
• Other enhancements, including specifics on public art, parking and even shelf space for reference materials.

Holton's ongoing demands and unwillingness to compromise delayed the start of construction and drove the cost far beyond that anticipated during the original gift negotiations with D'Alemberte.

"We must be more than good stewards of the taxpayers' money," Wetherell said. "We must not only build a chemistry building within budget but also build one that will serve more than just one branch of chemistry. We must meet the needs of many scientists in rapidly changing research fields.

"Dr. Holton's discoveries thrived within this university's research infrastructure," Wetherell added. "We owe it to our faculty, other researchers and students to create the appropriate research setting for other scientists and students to thrive."

Other FSU administrators also weighed in.

"Ten years ago, synthetic organic chemistry was dominant in the battle against cancer," said Kirby Kemper, FSU vice president for Research. "But science changes at the speed of light, and today other fields of chemistry now offer a much broader range of approaches to fighting cancer and other diseases. To stay at the forefront, Florida State University must have facilities that allow a multidisciplinary approach to scientific problem solving.

"Our new chemistry building is designed to take advantage not only of today's approaches but also of tomorrow's as-yet-unforeseen advances," Kemper said. "Riding the wave of the future means we must offer training and research opportunities in emerging areas of science, as well as more traditional fields. No single area of chemistry can dominate the others."

FSU's new chemistry building, as designed by faculty of the chemistry department, will facilitate interdisciplinary research into new materials as well as advances in the world of nanotechnology.

Brooks Keel, FSU's associate vice president for Research and a professor of biomedical sciences, said that "forward-looking faculty, researchers and students are looking for universities that offer interdisciplinary opportunities, and Florida State University's chemistry building must be part of this university's network of scientific research - at the College of Medicine, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, other departments in the College of Arts and Sciences and the many other venues where cutting-edge science is happening on this campus."

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