Don’t forget: Daylight Saving Time begins at the last moment of 1:59 a.m. Sunday, when time leaps ahead to 3 a.m.
Did you know? State Sen. Darren Soto,D-Orlando, is a BIG fan of daylight-savings. He has proposed SB 734 to keep Florida on that clock year-round. It faces three committee stops and as yet has no companion…
Speaking of time savers… Check out this time-saving (AND COOL) analysis out of AASCU compiled by Thomas L. Harnisch, Assistant Director of State Relations and Policy Analysis and Emily A. Parker, Senior Research Associate:
Together these two research ninjas analyzed the 50 speeches that have taken place since the beginning of 2013 to assess the extent to which policy priorities related to higher education have been integrated into the governors’ plans for the coming year. The analysis includes 49 states and the District of Columbia.
All together, these addresses provide a current national portrait of state chief executives’ priorities involving higher education.
Here’s what the report says about Florida:
Florida
Gov. Rick Scott (R)
State of the State Address March 5, 2013
- Said that his budget increases operating funds for Florida state colleges by more than $70 million and increases funding for the state’s universities by $390 million
- Stated that much of the increase will be tied to performance measures to ensure that schools adequately prepare students for entry into the workforce
- Praised the head of the University of Florida for coming up with performance metrics
- Lauded the chancellor of the Florida state colleges for enlisting all 23 state colleges in the
- $10,000 degree challenge and helping students earn degrees in high-demand fields
State University System
FAMU Winning Race Toward Reproducing Sun’s Energy
WFSU
FAMU’s fusion reactor is locked behind three doors in a large dust-free, clutter-free garage…
Transgender Awareness Workshop March 20 at FIU
MiamiHerald.com
A Transgender Awareness Workshop is set for noon Wednesday, March 20, at Florida International University’s Biscayne Bay Campus.
State Purchases Land For FSU, Wakulla Springs
WCTV
Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet have approved buying land to add to a National Guard training site and a north Florida spring. A land purchase request by Florida State University also was approved. Scott and Cabinet members Thursday approved a $2.1 million deal to buy land around Camp Blanding in Starke. The extra space is needed to buffer against noise from artillery training. The federal government will contribute $1.5 million toward the purchase. They also OK’d $1.5 million for more than 600 acres around Wakulla Springs to save it from development and protect the underground water. And they gave approval for nearly $2.6 million for two privately-owned parcels inside Florida State‘s campus to allow for the eventual building of a new film school…
Theatre UCF Heading into Controversy?
Florida Today
Theatre UCF (University of Central Florida) tickles the courage meter by tackling something pretty provocative. It’s “Spring Awakening,” the musical about repressed young Germans getting in touch with their own burgeoning sexuality (based on a Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play).
UCF, Blackstone to announce “major investment” to train entrepreneurs Monday
Orlando Business Journal
The University of Central Florida sent out a notice March 7 that, come Monday, March 11, the school and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation will announce a “ major investment to train Florida’s next generation of entrepreneurs…
UF group wants to pick roommates of any gender
Gainesville Sun
A group of students is pressing University of Florida officials for permission to choose roommates of any sex in campus housing. Gators Coalition for an Inclusive Campus wants to create space in residence halls for inclusive housing. But first, the coalition’s officers need the support of students…
View the coalition’s petition on Change.org: “University of Florida: Create an inclusive housing option on campus!”
Stadium Club ready to open
Gainesville Sun
The Stadium Club, which for three years sat untouched with concrete floors and pillars exposed across from the University of Florida, is now complete, filled in with brick and glass and ready for its first tenants to open for business next week. In the two first-floor retail spots fronting University Avenue, a sushi franchise restaurant called How Do You Roll? will open Monday, and the Henri Girl Boutique women’s clothing store makes its return to Gainesville later in the week…
USF Bulls announce full 2013 football schedule
Northwest News and Tribune
For the third consecutive season, the University of South Florida Bulls will play on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This time, it could begin USF’s first true holiday rivalry. USF announced its complete 2013 football schedule Wednesday…
Pollo Tropical grand opening event Friday
The Oracle
The event, sponsored by USF Dining, will take place between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The grand opening comes midway through the semester after the dining location was closed for renovations, converting the Burger King to Pollo Tropical…
Collegiate canines relieve USF-St. Pete students’ stress
Tbo.com
Students at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg are on spring break next week but they got an early start on de-stressing Thursday with the appearance of special therapy dogs…
State College System
Student Government Leaders Speak on Steps of Capitol [SLIDE SHOW]
WCTV
Nearly 400 students from Florida’s state and community colleges rallied on the steps of the old capitol building Thursday morning. Student leaders made the annual visit to advocate for the legislative issues most important to them. The rally was held by the Florida College System Student Government Association (FCSSGA.) The student leaders say they represent one million students who are in the state’s 28 state and community colleges. So, they wanted to make sure their voices were heard…
Miami-Dade College Seeking Sales Tax Hike For Additional Funding
WBFS
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami-Dade College has plans to ask county voters to pass a half-cent sales-tax increase to help shore up the college’s finances, according to CBS4 news partner the Miami Herald…
Independent Colleges and Universities
Development today
Jacksonville Daily Record
Edward Waters College, 1767 Kings Road, contractor is Elkins Constructors Inc., 10,430 square feet, new two-story building for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Edward Waters College, $2.1 million…
20 World War ll and Vietnam Veterans honored with paintings
Wink News
The Veterans Portrait Project began last year in Marco Island and came to an emotional end Thursday night at Hodges University in Naples.
NSU putting mystery diseases under microscope
Sun-Sentinel
Nova Southeastern University officials say their new Institute for Neuro Immune Medicine in Davie is the first in the country to not only treat patients with such conditions as chronic fatigue syndrome…
Rollins College Strips Christian Student Group’s Status Over Leadership Rules
Inside Higher Ed
Rollins College has decided to strip the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of official recognition as a student group because it requires leaders to be Christian and support certain views, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Representatives of the fellowship, which has faced similar policies at other colleges, complained that the Florida independent college is intolerant of students with evangelical and other strong religious views…
Rollins College boots student religious group off campus
Orlando Sentinel
Rollins College has kicked a religious student group off campus for requiring its student leaders to be Christian and promote certain conservative beliefs — a violation of the private school’s anti-discrimination policy.
Yip Yap: Noted and Quoted FLHE Voices from Around the Web
Universities’ name game
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
It’s tricky business for universities to name their buildings, whether they’re honoring someone or selling the rights to the highest bidder. Naming a building after a person runs the risk that the individual’s reputation will be later tarnished. Ask Penn State University, which named its library after the late football coach Joe Paterno and his wife. A child sex-abuse scandal involving one of Paterno’s former assistants caused the university to remove a statue of Paterno from campus, but his name remains on the building. Naming a building after a company runs a different set of risks, as Florida Atlantic University has discovered…
Editorial: Football at FGCU?
Naples Daily News
Football and Florida Gulf Coast University? We had all but forgotten about the idea since a consultant two years ago put the start-up pricetag at $100 million. That whopping figure included a stadium with practice fields, coaching staff, scholarships and everything else that props up a quality program…
My Word: Education, job training are our business
Orlando Sentinel
That is how many students the Florida College System serves each year. That number represents friends, neighbors, grandparents and our children. Florida’s state and community colleges open their doors to every student seeking education or job training…
Letter: What will it take for FAU to wake up about GEO?
Palm Beach Post
The editorial “FAU’s damaging defense,” was right on target. Unfortunately, Florida Atlantic University President Mary Jane Saunders didn’t come close to meeting the heavy burden to justify acceptance of The GEO Group naming rights in her meeting with students and others on Friday…JILL HANSON - Jupiter
Letter: School legitimizes human rights abuser
Palm Beach Post
FAU’s decision to name its new stadium after The GEO Group, which runs private prisons, is a bewildering and distressing move. It gives legitimacy to a company that has a well-documented history of mistreating people in its care, and to an industry that takes the responsibility for prisoners out of the public domain…GENEVIEVE HARRIET GOLDSTEIN – Palm Beach Gardens
Letter: Wrong lesson to teach students
Palm Beach Post
Your editorial description “transformational” regarding the FAU/GEO Group $6 million football stadium deal is right on. This is a university that strives for greatness, inclusiveness and diversity, so why teach students that moral issues are trumped by money? It does not seem so long ago that great universities taught students to fight for justice. TERRY BROWN – Ocean Ridge
Letter: Dirty money taints deal
Palm Beach Post
I find it interesting that FAU President Mary Jane Saunders was not aware of the many legal issues that GEO has had. The idea that The GEO Group will make money based on how many people it incarcerates is cause for concern, whether one has attended college or not. It does not take a degree to feel uneasy about such a fact, especially because this is the gateway to human rights violations…BETZY REGA – Jupiter
Letter: Hooters a better sponsor for Owls
Palm Beach Post
I can understand all the controversy over the naming rights for the Florida Atlantic University football stadium. Rather than GEO, a much more appropriate sponsor for the FAU Owls would have been Hooters…ROM GAMBOLATI – West Palm Beach
Letter: Prison-education link a new moral low
Palm Beach Post
I was shocked to hear that will name its football stadium for The GEO Group. What kind of message are the students getting from the naming of their stadium for the second-largest private prison corporation?…CAROL STRICK – West Palm Beach
Letter: Gratitude to GEO a pathetic notion
Palm Beach Post
One word that comes to mind regarding Monday’s letters to the editor about how the community should be grateful to GEO is “pathetic.”…BRENT BERKMAN – West Palm Beach
Letter: Private firms maximise use of tax dollars
Palm Beach Post
To get the most bang for its tax buck, governments have been turning more and more “government” jobs over to private industry. And private enterprise seems to be doing a fantastic job. How else does an outfit like The GEO Group make so much money that it can afford to give a half million dollars a year for naming rights to a stadium for 12 years?…BELLE RESSLER - Greenacrers
Letter: GEO concealing its shoddy record
Palm Beach Post
In his commentary “GEO Group being criticized unfairly over FAU donation,” The GEO Group’s Pablo Paez writes that criticisms of the for-profit prison company are based on a “misunderstanding of the facts,” but his defense of GEO’s record rests on factual misrepresentations…CARL TAKEI - Washington Editor’s note: Carl Takei is staff attorney for the Americans for Civil Liberties National Prison Project.
Letter: Leaders did what’s best for FAU
Palm Beach Post
Congratulations to FAU President Mary Jane Saunders for being a leader who actually showed some leadership. The GEO Group donated a much-needed $6 million to FAU. Immediately a bunch of poorly informed demonstrators decided they didn’t like where the money was coming from. Had they done their homework, they would realize that The GEO Group has been the world’s leading provider of correctional, detention and community reentry services for almost 30 years…JIM RICH – Jupiter
Arrested player sits out JUCO tourney in jail
Jackson County Floridan
Chris Thomas will not play in the JUCO state tournament with his Chipola College teammates this week…
Calendar for March 8, 2013
Ocala
BUDGET SESSION: Congressman Richard Nugent will hold a session about the federal budget from 3 to 4 pm Friday at the College of Central Florida…
FAMU Announces Non-Renewal of Football Staff Members
WCTV
Florida A&M Head Football Coach Earl Holmes announced today, that the contracts of wide receiver coach Steven Jerry and defensive back coach, Jimmie Tyson will not be retained.
McKeel’s sister back on Florida Polytechnic payroll
Tampa Bay Times
Last year, Maggie Mariucci cited a toxic, stressful environment as the reason she left her job at what was then known as University of South Florida Polytechnic. Her April resignation came just days after Gov.Rick Scott signed the law creating the university we now call Florida Polytechnic and just as details of a critical financial review of school operations was being made public…Now, the Lakeland Ledger is reporting that Mariucci, the sister of Rep. Seth McKeel, is back at Polytechnic. McKeel, a Lakeland Republican who now heads the House’s budget committee, has a long-standing relationship with the school as one of its main supporters in Tallahassee.
FIU experts to discuss Venezuela after Chavez
Local 10
Florida International University‘s School of International and Public Affairs and Latin American and Caribbean Center will host a panel discussion on “Venezuela after Chavez” on Friday. The university said professors will discuss the political, economic, social and other implications of the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Eduardo Gamarra, professor in the department of politics and international relations and former director of LACC, will moderate the discussion.
New FSU TEs coach Tim Brewster owns Twitter
Florida Flambeau
Don’t leave out the FSU coaches as former offensive coordinator James Coley was a modern day Picasso at Twitter, painting masterpieces at will at his fingertips…
Condoleeza Rice at PBAU, shares shocks of Bush era and beyond
Palm Beach Post
Rice‘s 35-minute speech at Palm Beach Atlantic University focused on what she described as “three really big shocks in the last 10 years…
Can one man overcome 500 years of distorted Florida history?
Tampa Bay Times
USF historian and Ponce de León expert J. Michael Francis is correcting the record…
Human brain cells used to make mice smarter
US News and World Report
It sounds a bit like science fiction, but many studies have looked at the effects of implanting rodent brains with human cells, said Paul Sanberg, a professor of neuroscience at the University of South Florida, in Tampa…
Releases and Web Stories
Public Lecture on Bluemner art at Stetson March 13
Stetson University Today
A lecture on the Oscar Bluemner art exhibition currently on display at Stetson University’s Hand Art Center, will be presented Wednesday, March 13, by Dr. Susanne Eules, exhibition curator, coordinator of Stetson University’s Hand Art Center and adjunct professor of German language and literature…
Sen. Bob Graham keynotes at 42nd Model Senate
Stetson University Today
Senator Bob Graham, former Florida Governor, will be the keynote speaker at Stetson University’s 42nd Annual Floyd M. Riddick Model United States Senate, scheduled at the university’s DeLand campus, March 14-16. Graham will speak with the students participating in the Model Senate during the day on Friday, March 15. At 7 p.m., that evening, March 15, Senator Graham will give a public lecture on civic engagement in the Stetson Room, second floor of the Carlton Union Building, 131 E. Minnesota Ave., DeLand. The lecture is open to the public, free of charge…
Advershares Launches at University of Central Florida
Virtual-Strategy Magazine (press release)
Sarasota, FL (PRWEB) March 07, 2013 Advershares announced the initial launch of their mobile social commerce platform to sororities and fraternities at the University of Central Florida. Local merchants surrounding the UCF campus are joining the Advershares network to increase local sales within the college market in Orlando. The initial launch is strategically focused on sorority and fraternity chapters as they already have strong social connections between them and are quickly realizing the benefits of working with Advershares…
Genshaft Receives Award
USF News
TAMPA, Fla. (March 4, 2013) – The Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) — the educational branch of The Gerontological Society of America — has named University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft as the 2013 recipient of the Administrative Leadership Award.
National Flight Academy and University of West Florida Partners in STEM Education
DigitalJournal.com (press release)
The National Flight Academy (NFA) and the University of West Florida (UWF) officially joined forces in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) education and Professional Development for the Ambition program in a ceremony that took place today at the National Flight Academy facility. Retired Navy Vice Admiral Gerald Hoewing, President of the National Flight Academy, and Dr. Judith Bense, President of the University of West Florida, signed the agreement and addressed the audience on this unique educational partnership…
