I have not posted for a while. It isn’t because I have not been writing. I have been thinking and writing a lot about student success. However, nothing felt or sounded right.
A Lot of Things I Want to Say
There are many things I hope to post in the future about student success. Over a period of time, I plan to write about enhancing graduation rates, the importance of student activities, mental health counseling, and the changing classroom. However, today I want to tell you about the last two days and the time I spent with some of our students.
Our Students at FSU PC
During the past several years, we have been working to bring residential housing to FSU PC as a public-private-partnership with a developer. As a public university, you have to follow a number of rules and regulations and receive approvals from both the university board of trustees and the statewide Florida Board of Governors (BOG).
On January 29-30, a group of students from our Student Government Council joined me in Tallahassee as we presented our project to the BOG. The 17-member statewide governing board was joined by the 12 public university presidents, in addition to some board members from each university.
Our students made their presence known and stressed the importance of the project as they talked to board members and others in attendance. Our students clearly understood the correlation between residential housing and student success. I know their presence and advocacy played a major role in the BOG members feeling confident in the importance of the project.
While our project was so important to us, the BOG had many other items on its agenda. In addition to discussing academic programs, athletics, mental health counseling and many other items, under newly-elected Chair Syd Kitson convened a panel of three Florida business leaders to discuss the connection between higher education and Florida’s businesses. Mark Wilson, President of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Jamal Sowell, President and CEO of Enterprise Florida, and Bob Ward, President and CEO of the Florida Council of 100 answered questions about Florida’s economy, the necessity of working together on items of common interest, and the critical importance of both STEM and the humanities.
FSU PC Student Gets the Last Question
As BOG members and the panelists were close to the end of a very interesting and important discussion, Chair Kitson called on FSU PC Student Government Council President Billy Bradley to ask the last question.
Question and Answers Focused on Student Success
Billy’s question hit right at one of the key things that we work to instill in our graduates — being engaged members of their communities. Touching on both stakeholder value and shareholder value, Billy asked how you can be both financially successful and make a difference for Florida. Please take a moment to watch Billy’s question and the insightful responses from the panelists. They focused on embracing your passion, increasing volunteerism in the state, and using your talents to enhance your community — all things that I believe our students learn to value while at FSU PC.