Professors at the University of South Florida peppered their Board of Trustees chair with questions Friday, asking him to stand up for the Sarasota-Manatee campus, which faces a possible takeover by New College of Florida.
Will Weatherford, a former House speaker, said he prefers to work behind the scenes as the deal makes its way through the Legislature, and reminded staff that the land and assets are owned by the state of Florida, not the university.
Last year, internal emails released in a public records request showed USF staffers drafted the legislation to give the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College, and Weatherford approved sending the text of it to New College leaders for their approval. Some 2,000 students attend, and 150 faculty and staff work there.
The deal never materialized in 2025 but appeared in Gov. Ron DeSantis' budget proposal for 2026. The transfer would include 32 acres of land and buildings at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, and $53 million in debt acquired from building new dorms.
At Friday's faculty senate meeting, held online, Weatherford opened by talking about how this all got started.
This story has been lightly edited for clarity and condensed for length.
WEATHERFORD: "This does go back to, I guess it was probably the fall of 2024 when the state Board of Governors asked us to look at the operations in Sarasota, and for New College to look at their operations and find ways to be more synergistic. And so the truth is, we have not optimized that (USF Sarasota-Manatee) campus, and it's hard to, to its highest extent. And frankly, we all know that New College has had a hard time optimizing their assets and, frankly, driving the cost per student down there because they don't have the physical capabilities to do it with the current facilities.
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"So all to say, we made the commitment to the state. We will work with our partners to understand what the scenarios are, including asset transfers."
For the next 45 minutes, Weatherford took questions. Scott Perry, an associate professor of history, asked about $22.5 million needed to pay for a "teach-out," whereby faculty would continue to instruct USF SM students until they finish their degrees within four years. The House budget allocated that money to New College.
PERRY: "While you've also stated there's a zero chance that this will happen, would you help us understand what might happen if that transfer of funds were to happen in the unfolding budget negotiation? Specifically, would you identify another source of funding for our salaries, should that money be lost?"
WEATHERFORD: "It's been communicated to me multiple times from people that I won't name here, but make these decisions, that if there were an asset transfer, let's just use that phrase for now, that the money would not be going with it to New College. In fact, I've talked to the president of New College (Richard Corcoran), who claims that he has not asked for that, and has told me on numerous occasions, like, 'I'm not asking for that. We don't expect to have any money.' So I feel as confident as I can be the money is not an issue, and the money and the resources will 100% be there for a teach out for faculty salaries and for staff."
Richard Manning, associate professor of philosophy, asked Weatherford to tell power brokers in Tallahassee the true cost of this handover to the community is far higher than just the land and buildings.
MANNING: "This is a real fleecing we're being offered here, and I fail to see thing one that USF gets out of it. We feel like the Board of Trustees has a responsibility, a fiduciary and other responsibility, to this institution to do everything it can to protect it."
WEATHERFORD: "So let me just remind everybody, this is not our land. OK? All these assets belong to the state, and it's their prerogative on what they want to do with them. I can communicate with them and give them our thoughts and let them know the pros and cons of what the execution of this would look like. I'm not negotiating with them. They own the land, and so they get to make the call.
"They're also our appropriators, right? So they get to decide, whether we get PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay and Debt Service) money for our next building, and whether we get any new, non-recurring dollars from the state. So just know, we're having a lot of conversations, and I think this session is going to actually going to be a very good year for the University of South Florida. I think it has the potential to be a great year for the University of South Florida, regardless of what happens specifically with this one very important item."
Jessica Grosholz, associate professor of criminology, asked why USF isn't speaking out against the campus transfer, since legislators may interpret USF's silence as a form of agreement that the campus should be given away.
GROSHOLZ: "Can you help us explain or understand why leadership has refrained from taking a more forceful position against this asset land transfer, and how might legislators reasonably interpret the university's lack of visible opposition when determining whether there is sufficient reason to resist this proposal? For those of us on the Sarasota-Manatee campus, faculty, staff and students alike, leadership's silence is really interpreted as consent for this proposal. So basically, if university leadership is not visibly expressing concerns, why should the legislators?"
WEATHERFORD: "There have been many instances where the state may do something, they may pass a statute that I disagree with. They may deal with something that relates to tenure, which is an example that you guys are all probably — and gals are all probably — familiar with, I have found that my ability to have influence and to navigate the legislative process and to have success on behalf of the entire university, not any one campus, but the entire university, is to be a productive and constructive voice with our leaders in Tallahassee.
"Yelling from the mountaintops as a member of the Board of Trustees, historically, has not gone well, and you typically don't move the needle. Having respectful conversations behind the scenes and meeting with leaders of the chambers to make sure they fully understand what's at stake and what could change if they were to go forward with this, and also making sure that if it is their prerogative to do so anyway, that there's a there's a way to do it that is less harmful to the entire university and to our people."
Arman Sargolzaei, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, asked a simple question that he acknowledged "may be hard to answer."
SARGOLZAEI: "I'm an engineer, obviously. So all the time, when we want to make a decision, we just want to look for the reasoning behind it. From the point of legislation, so what's the reasoning behind this move?"
WEATHERFORD: "I think the obvious answer is there are two campuses that are within a mile of each other. One of them's cost per student is substantially higher than the other. They need to probably find a way to expand their campus to drive the cost per student down to a place that's more reasonable, and the easiest and most efficient way for them to do that is to partner with a neighboring university that's a mile away.
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WEATHERFORD: "We have the governor who appoints everybody on the Board of Trustees, effectively as well as the Board of Governors. So we all serve at the pleasure of the appointing body, which, in my case, is the governor. And so in that instance, even the Board of Governors feels pretty strongly that it would be better for the system for this to happen. So I understand the frustration and why people may not agree, and people can disagree with that opinion, but it's the opinion of a lot of people that are in positions of authority that feel like there needs to be some synergy between the two campuses. That's why it's happening."
Lori Hall, assistant professor of instruction, asked for details about USF's plans for students and staff.
HALL: "I'm just inquiring what you mean when you say you will USF will protect the people, and also, does the administration have a plan for either scenario?"
WEATHERFORD: "Well, given that our president (Moez Limayem) has been here for less than two weeks, I'm going to let him get his sea legs here. And so not put him on the spot today, but just rest assured, there have been a lot of conversations that he and I've had and that he's been having in preparation for whatever comes.
"And so exactly operationally, what it looks like if people have to move: Let's just use it as an example and a drastic measure where someone has to move from Sarasota if they want to stay at the University of South Florida to St Petersburg or Tampa. Should there be some resources that are set aside to help people do that? Yeah, I think there should be. How much should that be? I don't know. Should we work really hard to integrate people into other campuses if this were to happen? Yes, we absolutely should, and we will.
"We're going to work really hard to make sure that people who are employed with the University of South Florida can continue to be employed in the University of South Florida. It may not be in the exact same role. It probably won't be teaching the exact same students, so it will be challenging.
"This is not going to be something easy for anyone. It's going to be very complicated for the president his team, but we're committed to that and doing it the right way. There's a way to treat people, and I'm very sensitive to the uncertainty and the frustration."
Andrew Beman-Cavallaro, a social sciences librarian at USF, asked Weatherford about the likelihood of the transfer going through.
BEMAN-CAVALLARO: "What are the odds this is really going to happen? I mean, you talked about the fact that the head of the Board of Governors is big on it."
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WEATHERFORD: "They're not low odds. The political process is so complicated. You take 120 people in the House. You take 40 people in the Senate. They all represent different parts of the state. They have very different perspectives about what's important to them. You have a governor that has to approve anything that happens. It is a mosh pit of people and agendas and debate.
"Having served in that process for eight years, I wish I could tell you I'm better at handicapping what they're going to do, but I'm not. If you would have told me last year, what are the odds of it happening last year, I would have said pretty high, and it didn't happen.
"I think the odds of it happening this year are higher than last year. So that's probably the best way I could answer it."
Tangela Serls, associate professor of Instruction in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, asked why New College couldn't be absorbed by USF, which is larger and has a higher status among research universities.
SERLS: "I remember former (USF) president Rhea Law saying last year when this was coming up — and I appreciated it, because it gave me hope — in essence, and I'm paraphrasing, we're the AAU institution (Association of American Universities). We're the nationally ranked, reputable institution. "
WEATHERFORD: "There's a lot of logic behind the reversal of this situation. As everyone probably remembers, New College, effectively, was part of USF in the beginning. And so, you know, there's a history here with that campus.
"Now, everyone should also know that the current campus that we have in Sarasota was not created by the university. The university didn't go to the state and say, 'Hey, you know what we need is another campus in Sarasota.' There was a political official who was at a very high position at the time in the Senate who decided he wanted USF in his district, OK? And he passed legislation, and he put money in the budget, and he created USF Sarasota. Nothing wrong with that at all. And this happens all the time.
"Like it or hate it, this is politics in the open, OK? And it's been going on for a long time. And so even at its inception, USF Sarasota was created by politics, not necessarily by the university's vision or plan."
Daniel Lende, an associate professor of anthropology, pointed out that USF Sarasota-Manatee has "strong buy-in from the community," and the education it provides locally is highly valued.
LENDE: "Is there any strategy USF is taking to make it cost prohibitive to try to do this? In other words, to make something that has a larger price tag than they think?"
WEATHERFORD: "I don't know if I'd say we've made it prohibitive. We've just said there's certain things that have to happen legally for this to work. An example would be, we built dorms and borrowed tens of millions of dollars to build them, and if there's an asset transfer, we're not keeping the debt on our balance sheet. They get to inherit the debt, right?
"So New College is going to have to figure out a way to make the debt service payments on millions of dollars a year. And as you know, we have New College students that are staying in those dorms today. We were unable to fill those up with students from USF Sarasota. And so there is going to be a cost for them that's pretty high. A) they're not going to get new money from the state, because we're going to keep the money that is being utilized operate that facility. And B), they've got to inherit the debt on that."
After Weatherford spoke, the USF Faculty Senate adopted a resolution, noting that the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus "is not a disposable asset, but an irreplaceable pillar of the University’s academic ecosystem."
They also urged "the USF administration and the Board of Trustees to vigorously advocate for a future that preserves a permanent, equitable USF presence in Sarasota-Manatee, rejecting any arrangement that compromises the stability of our faculty or the quality of education promised to our students."
