New plan in works to approve 4-year degree offerings at state colleges like FSCJ

Times-Union

Lawmaker wants stricter approval process for new 4-year degrees at state colleges

http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2015-03-08/story/new-plan-works-approve-new-4-year-degree-offerings-state-colleges-fscj 

TALLAHASSEE | Administrators at Florida state colleges hoped that a moratorium that blocks them from offering new four-year degree programs would quietly expire in May.

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, who led the charge last year to implement the temporary ban, has another idea. He wants the Legislature to come up with a new, more rigorous system for approving baccalaureate degrees at community colleges.

“I don’t intend to walk away from the moratorium and let it continue as it had before,” Negron said this week.

Of the state’s 28 community colleges, 24 of them currently offer 175 different four-year programs. Florida State College at Jacksonville has 13 bachelor’s programs and St. Johns River State College offers three.

While serving as the Senate’s powerful budget chief last year, Negron moved to limit state colleges’ ability to launch new baccalaureate programs, saying he was concerned about duplication and siphoning resources away from the State University System. He initially proposed reducing the budgets of state colleges to force them to shutter some of their existing baccalaureate programs he described as “mission creep,” but Negron agreed to a 14-month moratorium after colleagues pushed back.

FSCJ Provost Judith Bilsky said she was under the impression the moratorium would expire in May and the Board of Education would resume its established review process, which requires schools to explain the how the bachelor degrees meet local workforce needs and also mandates notifying the nearby state university.

She balked at the term “mission creep” because she said part of FSCJ’s mission is identifying the labor needs of local industries and filling those gaps in a way that is affordable and accessible to all types of students. “I think ‘mission creep’ is emotional and it’s overused and I really don’t think it exists,” Bilsky said.

University of North Florida President John Delaney said the two schools have a strong working relationship, but there have been times when UNF wasn’t 100 percent supportive of FSCJ programs. He mentioned FSCJ’s bachelor of science degree in early childhood education, which opened at a time when enrollment at UNF’s College of Education was declining.

“Where you run into issues is when you have an under-enrolled program and then it doesn’t make sense for taxpayers to create another similar degree across the street,” Delaney said.

In other parts of the state, the relationship between the local state university and community college is “near warfare,” he said.

The University of Florida has a solid partnership with Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Provost Joe Glover said, but he believes changes are needed overall to ensure the Florida College System and State University System are working together. He pointed out that universities can object to new bachelor degree proposals submitted by community colleges, but ultimately the Board of Governors that oversees state universities does not decide which programs are approved.

“I think the Board of Governors should have a major say in whether or not a new four-year degree is established at a state college,” Glover said.

Negron said he is in the early stages of drafting a plan for the new approval process for state college baccalaureate programs, and it will be ironed out in the Senate’s new Higher Education Committee.

Bilsky said she doesn’t mind state colleges being required to submit documents and data to prove to lawmakers that their four-year degrees are producing graduates that enter high-paying jobs without negative impact on state universities. But she doesn’t think tinkering with the approval process is necessary.

“In my opinion the process is very stringent right now,” she said. “We can always improve processes, but right now I think it’s time for the moratorium to be lifted.”

Tia Mitchell: (850) 933-1321