FLAGSHIP STATUS AN ELUSIVE GOAL FOR UF

It’s the oldest of 10 siblings. Biggest. Brightest. Wealthiest.

Even that description of the University of Florida may stir some argument.

But the flagship of Florida’s state university system? Stop right there.

They may use the “flagship” word in Gainesville. But in Tallahassee, Orlando, Tampa and Miami, people take exception.

It didn’t matter what people called UF for most of the 20th century. UF was established early as Florida’s leading public university and enjoyed decades of undisputed dominance, drawing, in recent years, within sight of the nation’s very best.

Yet even though UF leaders have occasionally sought special status for the school, UF has never been anointed as Florida’s flagship university. Michigan, Illinois and California, among others, long ago created national powerhouses of academia out of their flagships, with varying combinations of extra resources, expectations, responsibilities, autonomy and freedom from political interference. UF, more so than any of Florida’s other public universities, openly yearns to become one of the 10 best state universities in the country. That’s the competition.

Now, as the 21st century opens, the political rules in Florida are shifting. A law change, approved in May, calls for a bold new governing structure for Florida’s 10 public universities.

And word is circulating among top Florida university officials that the new system may be tailored in part to help free UF of more centralized, statewide planning. UF’s previous president, John Lombardi, fought hard for such independence, until he was squeezed from office in November.

Charles Young, the interim president who was offered the permanent job on Thursday, will enter a different political era than the one that Lombardi left.

UF supporters throw around the term “flagship” as if it’s a birthright. And they know the past few generations have positioned their school well. With its huge Shands Hospital and numerous professional schools, it has twice as much money to spend as any other Florida university. With its agricultural extension service, it has offices reaching into every county.

Florida State University has its own claim to flagship status as a comprehensive research university with many excellent programs and a respected national reputation. Florida A&M; University also has the history and is viewed nationally as one of the best historically black public universities. The University of South Florida has come so far so fast that it is right up there now. And the University of Central Florida, Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University are not far behind, moving fast.

But in many ways, they look like the pack of horses that chased Secretariat down the home stretch at the Kentucky Derby.

UF has 10,000 more students and about twice as many National Merit Scholars as any other Florida state university. Those students’ average SAT entrance exam score is 100 points higher than anyone else’s. The UF faculty includes far more Eminent Scholars and National Academy members. UF attracts twice as much money to sponsor research as anyone else, and it has about three times as much cash stashed in endowments.

UF had a long head start. For decades, it was the only state university for white males, during an era when they were the only people the state’s economy cared much about. So for decades, UF got almost everything. But official favoritism has eluded it.

UF backers occasionally have raised the issue of flagship status. In the 1970s, university leaders and lawmakers talked about seeking state constitutional protection for UF, like the University of Michigan enjoys. In the late 1980s, the Board of Regents debated naming UF as flagship, but the talk died off.

Robert Atwell, president emeritus of the American Council on Education, a coordinating association of 1,800 colleges and universities, said it is clear that the new system is aimed at granting autonomy that UF and Florida State both have sought, though he thinks it’s a bad idea.

He thinks the current system, in which the regents govern all 10 public universities, moderates the competition among the schools.

As for UF being a flagship, Atwell said Florida State, USF and FAMU would protest.

“There aren’t any rules on this,” he said. “These things are in the eyes of the beholders — and the alumni and the politicians.”

Call it a flagship. Don’t call it a flagship.

“We have gone in terms of our attitude around here from wishing to be respected to now knowing or believing we are respected. When you believe you are respected, you no longer demand little signs of respect,” UF Provost Emeritus Robert Bryan said.

He also served stints in the early ’80s as interim president at UCF and USF but admitted he remains biased toward Florida.

“You don’t run around saying, ‘You’ve got to call me the flagship university,’ because you know you are.”

By next spring, a task force is supposed to unveil a new system calling for the regents to give way to individual boards of trustees for each university. Each board would answer to an education czar. The czar would answer to the governor.

UCF President John Hitt has heard the talk that the new system may push UF forward. But Hitt dismisses the notion. He said the rising political power of Central and South Florida may find ways to favor newer, rapidly growing metropolitan schools such as his under the new system.

“I’m not sure how that cuts, long term,” Hitt said. “In the short term, you might see some benefit to the older, well-established universities, but I’m not sure it will last that way.”

Nor do many other university leaders hardened by Florida politics.

“South Florida schools are going to do exceptionally well because of the number of legislators who are located in South Florida. That’s what’s going to be the name of the game — the power base, who can bring the most legislators to the table,” predicted Regent C.B. Daniel of Gainesville.

Legislators have heard it all before. “If I hear one more member suggest that the Board of Regents is not a political process, I’m just going to fall over,” state Rep. Bill Sublette, R-Orlando, said after helping push through the new law, as chairman of the education appropriations subcommittee.

Bryan, UF’s chief academic officer for 15 years and interim UF president in the late 1980s, thinks UF’s advantages are beginning to transcend politics because UF — and most universities — are learning to find money outside the state coffers.

UF is finishing a $750 million fund-raising drive and has increased its endowment to more than $600 million. Its pull of federal and private research dollars has increased steadily, now paying for 86 percent of the school’s $300 million research efforts. Other sources of money also are emerging.

“We’ve evolved to a semi-financial independence as we’ve lost legislative power,” Bryan said. “Our budget now is 35 to 40 percent from the state. The rest is from other sources. It never used to be that way.”

Florida State Provost Lawrence Abele said several Florida universities could join the national elite, regardless of how many advantages one or two schools might have.

“You know, the world has changed,” Abele said. “I would say UCF has probably improved the most and fastest of any institution in Florida. That’s what one would expect in a dynamic, growing state.”

He pointed to California, home to five of the top 15 state universities in U.S. News & World Report’s influential annual rankings. UF is 16th on that list. Florida State is 45th.

“If you go back to the ’60s, there is no question that Berkeley was the flagship,” Abele said. “But if you look at [what has happened] the past 30 or 40 years with UCLA, UC Santa Barbara and especially UC San Diego, my gosh, there is no way you could call any institution there a flagship.

“It means nothing anymore,” he said of flagship status. “It’s really an antiquated term that was developed in the era when most states had one single university with branch campuses. Since the ’60s, when many states added a large number of universities that have done very well, it doesn’t have much meaning anymore.”

Originally Published: July 23, 2000 at 12:00 AM EDT