Dr. Lita M. Proctor
Assistant Professor of Oceanography
Over the last few weeks, I've had
the privilege of listening to many learned scholars speak about their ideas
on the future of FSU, and I've been inspired by their vision.
I feel I am approaching this task from somewhat of a different perspective
than many on this Commission. Although I've been on a number of campuses
- UCLA, Stony Brook, University of Georgia and Va Tech either as a student
or a postdoc, I am a relative newcomer to this campus, having joined the
faculty in the department of Oceanography in the Fall of 1994.
I'm particularly excited to be at FSU because I see the unique potential
that FSU has with its location in the capitol of a rapidly growing state
with many natural resources.
On the one hand, as a relative newcomer, I don't have the hard-won experience
to know what will or won't work on this campus. On the other hand, as a
relative newcomer, I can more easily entertain ideas about what might be
possible at FSU.
I have many hopes and dreams for the future of FSU, but I'd like to share
just one with you today. Sit back and imagine - just for a moment - it is
Monday morning, February 21, 2008.
You're sipping your morning coffee, reading the Tallahassee Democrat and
listening to Morning Edition on NPR, National Public Radio. Susan Gage,
grande dame of Florida Public Radio and director of WFSU, is talking about
Florida State University.
She announces: "FSU faculty, spear-heading a collaborative effort with
the Mote Marine Lab and the Florida DEP, has successfully employed their
newly-developed 'red tide filter' to eliminate the red tide from Florida's
beaches. This will save the state millions of dollars in lost tourism. The
Governor can be particularly proud of this achievement since it was under
his direction as President of FSU that this new research direction was initiated."
"This project rapidly follows the successful cleanup of Orimulsion
from Tampa Bay through the use of 'green technology' developed by FSU faculty
in one of their spin-off companies 'Ori-No-Co'. Princeton, MIT and the University
of Massachusetts have been calling FSU to apply these 'green technology'
methods to clean up oil spills in Boston Harbor and Long Island Sound."
"In recognition of this and other achievements by the faculty of FSU,
the Governor will be presenting the coveted Florida's Medal of Excellence
in Teaching and Research to FSU in a special ceremony to be held in the
Cabinet Room this afternoon at 2 PM." You begin thinking back:
Was it really only ten years ago that faculty in oceanography, meteorology,
chemistry, economics, geography, engineering, biology, geology and law started
talking about working together in new areas?
All of us were involved with Florida's environment in one form or another.
Almost every department in the health, livelihood and research group could
see linkages with Florida's environment and its importance to the quality
of life of Florida's citizens.
Both Provost Abele and Vice President Allen quickly grasped the potential
of this idea and promoted it to the President, to the Legislature and to
the Board of Regents.
Once these two took the helm, many things fell into place,
Federal funds, with matching money from the State, from the Board of Regents,
from Industry and from private contributors were applied to the new initiative
focusing on Florida's environment. The private contributors were particularly
excited by the idea that they could be instrumental in leaving a healthier
and safer Florida for their grandchildren to enjoy.
We all agreed that there would be three elements to this environmental initiative:
* The initiative would create four new educational programs - environmental
sciences, environmental
law, environmental economics and environmental studies - to educate the
future stewards of Florida.
* New innovative public education programs would be created for the public
to learn about FSU's role
in protecting Florida's environment and prosperity.
* Advisory groups of FSU faculty would be formed as a resource to the Governor's
Office and to the
Legislature on issues related to Florida's environment.
We can still recall the early and sustained products of this initiative:
* In the first year, FSU's new ENVIRONMENT web site won the coveted annual
Yahoo Cool
Sites award. After the first year, our web site routinely received 30,000
hits a day from all over the
world. This accomplishment was accompanied by the development of an award-winning
television
weekly "Florida Sea-to-Sea. "
* During his first year as President, Al Gore used FSU's highly successful
environmental program as a
model to showcase his new National Environmental Initiative. Among its many
elements, it included
a federal program to promote and incorporate environmental education from
K- 1 2 to the college level,
which benefited FSU immediately.
* FSU's reputation as a national leader in the study of the environment,
quickly attracted the hialhest
caliber of both undergraduate and graduate students. The number of National
Men't Scholars and
National Achievement Scholars increased by 30% by the 3rd year.
* Beginning six years ago, we saw that the new co-operative and internship
programs, developed with
the Governor's Office, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Forest Service,
the EPA and the local
environmental law firm of Hopping, Green, Sams and Srm'th, provided student
support while giving them
real "hands-on" experience. Last year, the employment rate of
our graduates was over 90%.
*The number of applicants to FSU showed a jump when the new Department of
Hydrology and Water
Resources was formed five years ago. Water was clearly the "hot button"
issue in Florida as it was in
many states and FSU saw the leadership role it could play in protecting
Florida's water resources as well
as regional water needs.
* About four years ago, a completely reorganized Council on Research and
Creativity, with an infusion
of funds from industry and private sources, which quadrupled their budget,
supported iruiovative projects
on environmental issues which gave the faculty the opportunity to explore
high-risk areas.
Even the youngest endeavor, the natural products program, developed in collaboration
with Chemistry, Oceanography, Biology and the medical school at FSU, was
off to a good start. Located at the FSU/FAMU branch campus in Panacea, tl-ie
new research building at the FSU Marine Lab will house the natural products
program as well as joint faculty from oceanography, biology and chemistry.
This natural products program joins the center for marine policy and environmental
law and the mariculture program to complete the mission of the branch campus
at Panacea.
What arguments persuaded the President, the Legislature, the Board of Regents
and the private contributors to support these new endeavors?
Well, that was the easy part.
We all saw the hard facts staring us in the face:
Florida has the longest coastline of any state in the lower forty-eight
and relies upon its proximity to the sea for its prosperity and its livelihood.
* Over three quarters of Florida's population lives in or will live in its
35 coastal counties, making
tremendous demands on water and other resources.
* Over half of Florida's population lives in or will live in six metropolitan
areas and every one of these
metropolitan areas, except Orlando, is located on a major estuary. Fisheries,
tourism and the health
of our coastal zone was in open conflict with this growth.
It was clear that the impact of human activities on Florida's environment,
includinc, its coastal zone, was crucial to the future of Florida and therefore,
crucial to FSU. This focus on Florida's environment gave us the theme around
which we built our new initiative.
Pipe dreams?
I think not.
The potential exists here for this and many other ways to capitalize on
FSU's strengths. We must simply want this campus to be in the forefront
of Florida's future.
Of course, unlike my vision, these types of things can't happen overnight.
There are still fundamental issues which must be resolved before we can
take on these new endeavors. I won't include the numbers - the pertinent
data can be found as an appendix to my talk. However, let's quickly look
at the three roadblock issues of space, facilities and salaries.
First, with space.
FSU has over 3 times more students per acre than the campuses of UCF, USF
and UF.
The fact is, we need more space, both as campus space and as building space.
This space issue impacts our effectiveness as faculty in a number of ways.
For example, in oceanography:
* Any ideas we may entertain about offering lab courses are discarded due
to lack of space.
* Our research space is at or over capacity.
* Our faculty have had to turn down graiits because we did not have the
space for students or lab equipment.
This last point is particularly serious since this results in real lost
opportunities and revenues to the
department and to the university.
Paradoxically, this is one of the "roomiest " campuses I have
been on and this is because the campus has such a bounty of trees. Even
at the current enrollment, I believe campus expansion is crucial. However,
with a rethinking of the campus traffic and parking, we can still sustain
the "woodsy "feel of the FSU campus while accommodating our growing
needs.
The second issue is facilities: (3)
Like many of the science buildings on campus, our building is 30+ years
old, back when Sputnik and the space race built all of our science universities.
However, unlike fine wine, these buildings have not improved with age.
We are, and have been for some time, short on safe working conditions and
adequate facilities. Lack of sufficient electricity, water and even restrooms
are part of the problems we deal with on a daily basis. Before FSU can move
forward into ANY new initiatives, specific resources must be identified
to provide adequate, safe and up-to-date teaching and research facilities.
If these facility inadequacies are remedied, I am certain it will go a long
way to unleashing the faculty and producing a new level of enthusiasm and
productivity in research and teaching not previously seen on this campus.
And the third issue, of course, is salaries. (4)
The last time we checked (in 1994), our faculty in oceanography were paid
at least 20% below the national average. That's 20% and continues growing
and for a program that is nationally-ranked.
This consistent short fall in salaries has impacted our department in real
and meaningful ways:
· We have great difficulty recruiting faculty because of the salary
disparity.
· Due to the low salary rate increases, even the younger faculty
who start at a higher base fall quickly
behind others in their field.
* We have lost several well-known scientists to other universities because
we cannot maintain a
competitive salary.
There is also an equally important but perhaps intangible element to these
salary issues and that is in the impact it would have on the faculty attitude
towards their university.
I strongly believe that correction of the salary inequities would go a long
way towards helping the faculty feel someone is saying 'job well-done. "
This kind of goodwill can move mountains and this is the type of support
that will be needed for future endeavors to be successful on this campus.
On the other hand, because nothing breeds success like success, we also
need to actively identify the strengths we have at FSU that can form the
building blocks for future endeavors.
Firstly, at FSU, the College of Arts and Sciences alone accounted for 34%
of total expenditures at the university for the last fiscal year. Or, looking
at it another way, the College of Arts and Sciences was responsible for
generating 59% of the total overhead to the university last year. In fact,
just four nationally-ranked departments--Oceanography, Meteorology, Biology
and Physics - generated 48% of all the overhead to the College. Clearly,
by the measure of external funding and national rankings, the sciences are
our strong suite at FSU and need to receive specific resources from the
university to remain productive and vital.
In addition, let's look at other kinds of strengths we have. In this comparison,
let's take a look at the level of collaborative research efforts between
departments on this campus and between this school and other schools.
The faculty in the broad fields of environmental science, technology and
policy areas had close to $7M of external funding last year. Marine and
aquatic sciences have collectively brought in close to $5M. Climate and
weather prediction generated $5M. These examples demonstrate that there
are many areas where FSU faculty can and do work together. In turn, with
regard to other universities, FSU faculty collaborate with colleagues from
many other universities. For example, some of our recent top ten collaborators
include Cal Tech, NC State, Columbia and USF, which have totaled over 70
projects and over $5M in external funding, My own collaborations with FAMU's
new Environmental Sciences Institute, established with a $5.5 M grant from
the Department of Energy, will help support graduate students in my department
and bring new research opportunities to both FSU Oceanographv students and
to ELI students at FAMU.
Clearly then, a second strength at FSU is the tradition of collaborative
and interdisciplinary research in many fields both within the university
and between schools.
These strengths at FSU can act as springboards to new levels of teaching,
research and scholarly activities. And working with these specific strengths,
we have all of the elements to be a world-class institution within the near-term
rather than the long-term future.
In summary, I'd like to use our school name - FSU - as a reminder of the
three elements which will be important for the future of FSU:
Fundamental issues which can prevent Florida State from being world-class.
Specific strengths which are the building blocks for Florida State
to become world-class.
Uniting endeavors which will help make Florida State world-class.
Thank you.