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Trustees likely to give Bense 18 more months at helm

March 23, 2015
/ Carlton Proctor
/ education

University of West Florida President Judy Bense’s request for an 18-month contract extension appears to be a done deal. The Board of Trustees will meet Wednesday at UWF’s Emerald Coast campus in Fort Walton Beach where they are expected to approve extending Bense’s contract to Dec. 31, 2016. Trustee Chairman Lewis Bear said a special committee he formed earlier this year to consider Bense’s request will recommend approval to the full board at that meeting. “Dr. Bense's contract is up at the end of June,” Bear said. “The committee I appointed to consider this met a few weeks ago and is recommending we negotiate an 18-month extension.” The special committee included Bear along with UWF Faculty Senate President Richard Hough, and Student Government Association President Ethan Friedland. Neither Hough nor Friedland could be reached for comment despite repeated attempts. Last year, faculty tensions boiled over in a no-confidence vote in Bense’s leadership. The Board of Trustees then called a special meeting to voice their full support of Bense and the job she was doing steering the university. Bear said extending Bense’s contract makes sense from a practical standpoint. Her contract is set to expire June 30. Not renewing it would leave the Board of Trustees three months to either find a new president or appoint an interim. “Based on our calculations, we believe it will take about 15 months to do a national search, find the best candidate and hire a permanent new president,” Bear says. “So, we felt the best approach is to extend her contract to Dec. 31, 2016, and use the next 18-to-20 months to begin a national search for a new president.” Football, BEI bumps The Bear committee’s recommendation appears to have support among the 13-member Board of Trustees despite some major setbacks that have occurred recently on Bense’s watch. Earlier this year, Bense announced a year's delay in building an athletic complex to house the fledgling football program. The delay was blamed on a lack of capital construction funds from both public and private sources. “We’re not getting a dime for this project from the Legislature this year,” Bense said. “So, what we will do is on the first of May we’ll start building the competition field along with the infrastructure for the athletic complex.” Bense said the university does have the money to complete that phase of the project. “Then, hopefully, we’re counting on more private donations that we ever thought we would need.” Dr. Brendan Kelly, vice president for university advancement, has launched a campaign to raise money from private donors, Bense said. “We hope to have the financing in place for the athletic complex by next year and break ground for the project in the summer of 2016, so it will be ready for the fall of 2017.” Bense said she has no doubts about the viability of the UWF football program, and there's no turning back. “The football train has left the station,” she said “I gave Coach (Pete) Schinnick my word that we would find a way as soon as we can to do what he needs for his football program. “This is not the first football program he’s started from scratch, it’s the third. We'll find a way to do it.” Along with announcing the delay in the athletic complex, Bense also said the university's private development arm, BEI (Business Enterprises Inc.,) was forced to cancel the Northwest Village condominiums, one of her pet projects. Once again, lack of funding and a soft market demand for retirement dwellings was to blame. “Yes, I think that Northwest Village is a viable project,” she said. “We really didn't cancel the project, what we really canceled was a putting out another request for proposal to see if anyone is interested. “We just felt we had enough on our plate, so we pushed it from the front burner to the back,” she said. “It still is, in my opinion, the best thing we can do with that part of our property.” Future plans, performance funding metrics Despite these setbacks, Bense maintains strong support among the trustees. “I support the contract extension for Dr. Bense,” said trustee Garrett Walton. “I think she’s done a good job under often difficult circumstances, and I think most of the board feels the same way I do.” Bense was appointed interim president in July 2008 when then-President John Cavanaugh resigned to take a job in Pennsylvania. After two years an interim president Bense was rewarded with a five-year contract as permanent president in July 2010. Bear added that upon expiration of her new contract, Bense would have the option to return to UWF’s faculty, or retire. Bense, 69, said she has no intention of serving as president beyond Dec. 31, 2016. [youtube id = "C-s5Xsy7F5s"] She told Pensacola Today there are three primary reasons she wants the contract extension. “One is to see to completion our accreditation reaffirmation, something the university has to go through every 10 years,” she said. “It is the most important thing that a university does, to maintain its accreditation. It’s a long process and it will not end until this coming December. “I don’t think we should have any juggling of UWF leadership during this time,’ she said. The second reason is improve the school’s performance funding metrics, said Bense. In 2012-2013 UWF was ranked last among the state’s 12 universities. See the full report here. In 2013-2014, UWF was ranked fifth best in the state. See the report here. The university centralized student support services, hired new advisors and targeted at-risk students through a summer program meant to help them raise their grade point average. UWF performance funding highlights include: — A 9 percent increase in its six-year graduation rate, from 42 to 51 percent. — Student retention, measured by the number of students who enter their second year with a GPA of 2.0 or higher, is up by 4 percent. — Increasing the percentage of students graduating in high-wage, high-demand areas, including science, technology, engineering and math (known as STEM), from 45 percent to 50 percent. Similarly, the number of students earning graduate degrees in high-wage, high-demand areas is up by four percent. — A 2 percent increase in the number of students who are employed full-time or continuing their education one year after graduation. — The average annual wage of recent graduates is up to $32,900 from $31,000, a 6 percent increase. “I want to smooth it out,” Bense said. “We put our shoulder to the wheel and did a lot of things to improve that ranking this time. But now we’re edging up into the ‘excellence’ category, and to stay there takes a new strategy.”

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Trustees likely to give Bense 18 more months at helm

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