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Editorial: Boost for business school and USFSP

 
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg received a $10 million gift, the largest single gift in its history, from entrepreneur Kate Tiedemann, whose name will now grace the USFSP College of Business.
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg received a $10 million gift, the largest single gift in its history, from entrepreneur Kate Tiedemann, whose name will now grace the USFSP College of Business.
Published Sept. 4, 2014

The University of South Florida St. Petersburg's ambition to double its student body to 10,000 by 2024 looks even more attainable now that its growing business college has received a major donation. Kate Tiedemann's record gift should help the college attract a top-flight business dean and improve on its growing reputation. Now the challenge will be to parlay that investment in one corner of campus to a broader expectation for excellence so that even as student enrollment expands sharply, USFSP continues to grow in quality.

Before announcing Tiedemann's $10 million gift Thursday at a USF trustees meeting at USF St. Petersburg, regional chancellor Sophia Wisniewska also won approval for the campus' strategic plan. Nine months in the making, it aims to turn the small downtown campus by Tampa Bay into a distinctive four-year choice sought out by freshmen. USFSP has already seen a growth in interest from students and has built new amenities — a handful of dormitories and a student center — that create the feel of a vibrant campus.

The strategic plan calls for providing more of an organizational infrastructure for student retention and faculty support, from adding community-based learning initiatives and first-time-in-college support programs to institutionalizing the practice of collaborative research between faculty and students and improving faculty recruitment and retention efforts. The goal Wisniewska laid out Thursday would have been unthinkable just a decade ago: to have 90 percent of students arrive on campus as freshmen and spend all four years there.

The big question, of course, remains funding and space. The Florida Legislature, even as it has provided the first installment for a new business college building at USFSP, has continued to shortchange the state's higher education system of operational dollars. The campus' growth plan should be helped in part by news Thursday that USF's Tampa campus is not planning to increase enrollment. But USFSP will also need to realize its goals of more research-centric education and a classic campus feel to attract the quality of students it wants and to fully distinguish itself from St. Petersburg College, which offers several four-year degrees at lower costs.

Then there are physical constraints for the hemmed-in urban campus. Wisniewska said all the right things Thursday about working with community partners when it comes to education efforts and as good neighbors — and there was an impressive array of community leaders on hand to celebrate Tiedemann's gift. Now a healthy, expansive conversation is needed as part of the city's Downtown Waterfront Master Plan process about how to best plan for up to 5,000 more students in a way that energizes and improves downtown.

The remarkable generosity of Tiedemann, an immigrant with her own inspiring success story and only very recent ties to Pinellas County, is a shot of confidence for a business college poised to aim so much higher. But it's also one for USFSP and all of its potential.