Florida Student-Run Paper Sends Ben Sasse Packing

Please explain why it’s a good idea for the university’s communications chief to work hundreds of miles from the campus and make $562,000 a year.
Is it not important for the chief spokesman of the institution to be familiar with the physical layout of the campus for example?

 

It was smaller than some high schools.

Do your homework.

 

Sorry to offend you.

 

The guy rang up a $17M bill giving all his ex-GOP, ex-McKinsey hack buddies 200k jobs to work remotely from their million dollar McMansions in Nashville, while simultaneously telling the university to cut 40 schools.

But he’s just misunderstood. Lol.

 

Remember when Jim Tomsula was an NFL head coach?

 

I can’t speak to the salaries. I’m sure the university could cut lots of things. Higher ed is woefully bloated, still operating under a “finishing school for the aristocracy” mindset.

 

Can’t speak to the salaries? Try reading the first story, which references the Sasse klan’s $$ and comparisons to predecessors’ salaries.

 

He ran a schoolhouse.

Honestly, he's not remotely qualified to run the decent liberal arts schools in this state like Florida Southern and Barry and U Tampa.

 

Anyway, not humoring his lack of qualifications anymore because if you don't understand why running Midland Lutheran College isn't comparable, I can't help you.

So before the Sasse hire, DeSantis bulldozed this piece of legislation through that would keep the candidates for positions like this completely secret until they announced finalists. This was done because when alums fine out who applied, they rightfully begin to politick for the one that they think will do the best job.

Why oh why would this piece of legislation need to exist?

Well Florida State University had an opening for President that DeSantis tried to force his Educational Commission, Richard Corcoran, into. Corcoran, who was the former Florida House Leader and a Chief of Staff for Rubio, had some fiends on the board, but the candidates for the job were released when they were going through the evaluation process and the amount of FSU alums that wanted Corcoran to have the job were about 0.1% if that. And when compared to the candidate that eventually was named to the post, Richard McCullough, it wasn't even a question with McCullough deep educational background, his commitment to research and his work at Carnegie Mellon and Harvard in several different posts. Pretty impressive guy and a great choice for a University that is eager to take a major step forward in the area of science and research

So this legislation go bulldozed through and Corcoran was handed the job as President of the New College in Sarasota -- kind of a idyllic liberal arts place that DeSantis wanted to turn into a GOP breeding house. Fair enough.

But Fuchs resigned a year later and now this legislation could really kick into high gear. No one knows who applied for the job at University of Florida or what their qualifications were. Given its status as a top 10 public university nationally and top 50 overall, one would think many accomplished suitors in academia would be interested. After a "long process of going through very impressive qualified individuals" the Board settled on one finalist -- Sasse. This was met with chants of "Bullshit" and I can fairly say the guy was set up to fail from day one even if you ignored his complete lack of qualifications. No one outside of a corrupt BoT leader that was promised a sweetheart real estate deal wanted this guy here.

Like I said earlier, the best case scenario for UF is for the people that actually care about the academic future of the school to convince Fuchs to stay through the 2026 election, which means January of 2027 -- a long time for an interim and hope that Governor Matt Gaetz is too busy trying to fuck his interns to care about education or Governor Byron Donalds is too busy doing whatever he does to care about education.

 

The "only one finalist" thing is, and for quite awhile has been, very common in top-level administrative hires in academia.

Similarly, an incoming president getting a fat slush fund to spread around on his/her pet projects is quite common. At my previous place of employ, a nondescript directional research school, such were in the millions. That Sasse was given more to spend at a place like UofF doesn't strike me as all that unusual.

 

truer words / never spoken, etc.

 

Is that Gordon Gee's music?