If any merger of higher education institutions takes place in Sarasota, the University of South Florida should take the lead due to its strong standing in academics and finances.
That's what some faculty and leaders at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus said at a board meeting on Friday.
USF alumni, faculty, staff and members of the community spoke about their strong ties to the area. They also showed evidence of student and faculty success, increased enrollment and the donor contributions that have fueled scholarships to record highs.
“The Sarasota-Manatee campus is a valued part of USF,” said board member Lisa Carlton, who asked for a letter from USF's leadership to legislators, thanking them for their support. She also asked for a regular agenda item to be added to future meetings so that board members can openly discuss campus issues and perhaps avoid the secrecy of this year’s takeover bid by neighboring New College of Florida.
ALSO READ: Emails detail plans to ‘transfer’ USF Sarasota-Manatee to New College
Earlier this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a transfer of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, which has been overseen for decades by Florida State University, to New College.
The board of trustees of the small honors college is dominated by right-wing appointees intent on expanding the school's footprint.
Meanwhile, internal documents revealed that USF and New College were also preparing for a New College takeover of the southernmost USF campus in exchange for wiping out $53 million in debt that USF incurred by building dormitories there.
“I will just reiterate, through a lot of effort, no bills were filed, no formal proposals were ever introduced in the legislature,” USF president Rhea Law said Friday.
“I am ecstatic that we are seeing support from the community in ways that we've not seen before. I'm delighted to see the pride that this community has in Sarasota-Manatee,” she added. “And frankly, I'm really delighted to hear that you're willing to fight with us because that's an important issue also.”
Law announced in February she will step down once a successor is found. A search committee has begun its work, but it does not include a USF Sarasota-Manatee representative, according to members who spoke Friday.
In official statements, USF has said the takeover talk began in September, when state university Board of Governors Chair Brian Lamb asked USF to "identify synergies” with New College.
During public comment at Friday’s meeting, USF history professor Scott Perry said the university should take advantage of the community support it gained from forming an alliance with supporters of The Ringling Museum who want it to remain under FSU.
“We are in a position to capitalize on that enormous goodwill demonstrated publicly for USFSM and to make good on the trust the community has placed in us," Perry said. "I would insist, therefore, that whatever plans lie ahead for our campus must be done with the full awareness and buy-in from our community supporters."
He also pointed out that USF is the only Association of American Universities member in the region, and that USF students are researching an antiquities collection at the museum and creating images of the sculptures there.
“Only an AAU-rated institution like ours can be a real partner to our colleagues in these FSU components, and we should encourage the Dean of Design, Art and Performance in Tampa to recognize the potential of this area,” Perry said.
“It is obviously far more advisable to create a synergy with FSU than with an institution as incompetently run and as scandal-ridden as New College,” he added.
New College has faced scrutiny over the cost of a degree -– in taxpayer dollars, it uses 10 times more than USF — and its struggles to pay for the high salary of president Richard Corcoran, a prominent Republican in state politics and former speaker of the House.
Yet at a board of trustees meeting in Tampa this month, Chair Will Weatherford talked of “when” the issue would come up again, not if.
ALSO READ: USF leadership drafted bill to give Sarasota campus to New College, emails show
In another sign that the issue hasn’t died, New College trustee Dr. Lance Karp this weekend called for an “alignment” of USF, FSU and New College, describing the three as operating independently within a mile of each other.
“And all of us — as taxpayers, business owners and residents — are footing the bill for this inefficiency,” wrote Karp, a dentist who has served on the New College board since 2020, in an editorial on Saturday in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
“We're still keeping a close eye, because nothing's over, ever over, when somebody wants something bad enough,” restaurateur John Horne said at Friday’s meeting in Sarasota.
“But guess what? We want USF in our community, incredibly bad, and so we're willing to fight for it. So thank you all for fighting with us and the community is behind you 100%,” said Horne, who serves on the advisory board for the USF College of Hospitality and Tourism Leadership.
Karen Holbrook, who retired from USFSM as regional chancellor in 2024, also spoke during the public comment period and read a letter from Sarasota Chamber of Commerce president Heather Kasten.
“Having a high-caliber university in our own backyard is a tremendous asset to our business community,” Holbrook said, quoting Kasten.
“USF Sarasota-Manatee not only provides accessible top-tier education, but also serves as a direct pipeline of local talent. Its graduates fuel our workforce across sectors from health care to hospitality to business, cybersecurity and education, helping local companies grow and thrive.”
Another speaker was Charles Baumann, who spent 17 years with the fundraising arm USF Foundation and was a member of the first campus advisory board at USF Sarasota-Manatee.
“This campus got its own academic accreditation, which we got, received, and then later gave up back to Tampa to allow for what we call One USF,” he said, referring to the 2020 consolidation that made USF a single university with three sites in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee.
Baumann also recalled a time when New College and USF Sarasota-Manatee were merged. New College joined the state university system in 1975 as part of USF, and eventually became its own entity as Florida’s honors college in 2001.
“I think it's important that we remember this, and also just remember the trials that we went through when we were united, to some extent, with New College, which was never a good union. It was bad. I mean, I was there and saw it,” Baumann added.
Campus board member Ernie Withers recalled that when he met with legislators this year they told him, ‘’There's no ground support; no one in Sarasota really cares, we’re not hearing anything,” regarding the value of the Sarasota-Manatee campus of USF.
“I just thought that that was a false narrative,” Withers said.
"It was a little embarrassing, you know, to us as board members on being kind of kept in the dark. And so we just want a little bit more transparency, I think, if we're going to do this and fight for our community,” he added.
If state leaders decide to press on toward a merger, Withers suggested USF get the upper hand.
“We want to be the ones that take ownership of the three campuses. And I don't know why we can't do that if they want to go down that road,” he said, citing the lower cost of a degree at USF compared to New College and the way more USF students tend to stay in the local community after graduation.
Other board members echoed Withers’ concerns.
“I think that open communication is very important,” campus board member Anila Jain said.
“Transparency from the top to us, so that we're not caught with our pants down,” campus board member Bill Mariotti said, “so that we can be proactive instead of reactive.”
Campus board Chair Rick Piccolo, whose son was briefly employed at New College this year before he was let go after a series of indecent exposure incidents, did not sign on to a letter from USFSM campus leaders in April, and appeared to suggest his silence on the matter was a tactic of support.
There is “a delicate balance between ¬ when those discussions are going on up in Tallahassee ¬ between poking the bear and not poking the bear,” Piccolo said.
