In this week’s “Outtakes,” I discuss what I fear may be an orchestrated takeover of the University of West Florida. Because of the cold front moving in, the issue might not hit the stands until after the Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, Jan. 23, so I’m posting it here.
Outtakes—Déjà Vu All Over Again
In what’s beginning to feel like a sequel nobody requested, the University of West Florida (UWF) finds itself cast in the latest installment of “Extreme Makeover: Florida Education Edition.” Governor Ron DeSantis has appointed five new trustees to UWF’s board, and the Florida Board of Governors has replaced three trustees.
If you’re thinking, “Hey, this plot seems familiar,” you’re not wrong.
Picture this: A thriving Division II university that’s been crushing its performance metrics gets some surprise new trustees from out of state. If that sounds like the opening scene of what happened at New College of Florida in 2023, well … as Yogi Berra might say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
The new appointments include Adam Kissel and Scott Yenor, both Heritage Foundation fellows who probably couldn’t find Pensacola on a map without Google’s help. This marks a stark departure from Gov. Jeb Bush’s founding principle that UWF would have a governing Board of Trustees comprised of local leaders who know the difference between Palafox Street and Panama City Beach.
The timing couldn’t be more ironic. Under President Martha Saunders’ leadership, UWF has transformed from the metric system’s equivalent of a participation trophy (57 points in 2016) to a powerhouse performer with 84 points out of 100. Overall, UWF is now ranked sixth among Florida’s state universities—the only Division II school running with the big dogs like the University of Florida and Florida State University.
The university’s achievements are impressive and tangible: 79% of graduates employed or in graduate school within a year (second in the state), a record-setting $53,000 median graduate income and an 83.5% second-year retention rate. But apparently, success isn’t enough when there’s an ideological playbook to follow.
American Mind published last week new trustee Scott Yenor’s viewpoint titled “Tools for Conservative Education Reform,” advocating for program reviews to eliminate what he considers “ideological programs.” Meanwhile, fellow appointee Adam Kissel dreams of privatizing universities—because nothing says “serving the public good” quite like turning education into a corporate merger opportunity.
The Jan. 23 board meeting will be held via Zoom, meaning these new trustees won’t even have to set foot on the campus they’re about to help govern. It’s like they are being asked to judge a symphony performance based only on reading the sheet music. They might understand the materials given to them for the meeting, but they won’t know UWF campus life, its faculty and its students or its relationship with the community.
For those keeping score at home, this follows the New College playbook almost to the letter. On Jan. 6, 2023, similar appointments there led to a presidential ouster and an institutional overhaul faster than you can say “classical education.” The only difference? New College had 689 students. UWF has over 14,700; that’s a lot more futures hanging in the balance.
We have launched a petition on change.org, hoping our voices might matter more than out-of-state think-tank credentials. After all, UWF has spent decades building itself into what President Saunders proudly calls “an integral part of our community and a major driver of economic development” in Northwest Florida. The question now is whether that community connection matters more than ideological renovation plans drawn up in Tallahassee, Washington D.C. and Boise, Idaho.
When this newspaper hits the stands on Jan. 23, UWF will be at a crossroads. On one side: continued excellence in serving its students and community. On the other: becoming the latest laboratory for educational experiments that nobody local requested. The university that has excelled at teaching critical thinking now faces its own critical moment.
For a school that’s done everything right by the state’s own metrics, it seems the reward is a board makeover that threatens to fix what isn’t broken. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. Or in this case, no good performance metric goes unreformed.
The UWF community now watches and waits, hoping their success story doesn’t become another cautionary tale in Florida’s ongoing higher education drama. Because if there’s one thing worse than failing to learn from history, it’s being forced to repeat someone else’s failure.
To sign the petition, visit bit.ly/uwffuture.
