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The Entrepreneurship Program was recently named the outstanding emerging entrepreneurship program in the entire country. One of its newest faculty members, Dr. Hemant Merchant, has been ranked the 10^th  most prolific international management scholar in the world. A growing relationship with Pasco-Hernando Community College will help their qualified graduates earn a business degree from USF St. Petersburg without leaving home.

And most recently, members of our student Entrepreneurship Club dominated a pitch competition at the University of Tampa that drew more than 200 students from across the Southeast. Four of the seven finalists were USF St. Petersburg students, and the first and third place winners were both USFSP students.

These are just the latest signs of the college’s growing stature. Our students and the business community they seek to join are the greatest beneficiaries. The college is preparing the next generation of business leaders and helping those already in the business world to reach the next level of success.

The College of Business also practices what it teaches. No business can rest on its laurels. It must constantly challenge itself in response to the dynamics of the marketplace.  The College of Business has done just that, which is one reason it created the first fully online MBA program among public universities in the Tampa Bay area:  It gives busy executives another avenue to grow and succeed by embracing the latest technology.

The college also is engaged with the real world in ways that benefit the community, whether through in-depth economic impact studies, regular forums that offer the latest ideas to business people or free help with income tax preparation (it’s that time of year again!).

And veterans interested in pursuing an MBA are getting the help they need to transition from the military to the academic world.

An important next step in the growth and evolution of the College of Business is a building to call its own. The USF System Board of Trustees has ranked it the top new-building priority, and our Pinellas Legislative Delegation is supporting this important effort.

If you know a legislator, please express your support for state funding of a new home for the College of Business.

As Florida begins to emerge from the economic woes of the last few years, the College of Business is poised to lead the way toward a brighter economic future.

A new University Student Center with nearly 200 additional residential students and our first full-service meal plans. Our first-ever student health clinic in our newly refurbished Student Life Center. A record freshman class. A new biology degree that drew 450 students. Growing recognition of our distinguished faculty and their ground-breaking research. The continuing success of our USF sailing program.

But that was then.

What about this year?

I think there are plenty of reasons to expect another year of continuing success.

Norine Noonan, vice chancellor for academic affairs, will be working with our colleagues in the College of Arts and Sciences to launch a new major in World Languages and Culture in the fall. Her team also is working on an exciting collaboration among USF St. Petersburg and four other state universities, under the auspices of the Florida Institute of Oceanography, for a summer course exploring marine life in four ecologically distinct areas of our state. In March, the USFSP Honors Program will co-sponsor the first “St. Petersburg in the World Conference” to discuss some of the pressing issues in international affairs.

With both residence halls filled to capacity, we will soon begin preliminary discussions to build a third residence hall. A third hall would accommodate demand from students and their parents and continue the transformation of our campus.

I look forward to the recommendations of a distinguished panel of community leaders, all experts in the fields, who are studying how we can efficiently use our space to enhance the quality of learning and collaboration. Meanwhile, we also are studying potential sites for a College of Business building. The College of Business is the top new-building priority for the entire USF System, and has the strong support of the St. Petersburg business community. I look forward to working with the Florida Legislature to secure funding.

Meanwhile, Norine Noonan will lead the search committee for a new vice chancellor for administrative and financial services, a key position in our leadership team.

I could go on, but you get the point: 2013 is shaping up to be another year to remember for USF St. Petersburg.

I just want to take a moment during this Holiday Season to thank all of you for making the past four months extremely enjoyable.  Although I felt very intimidated when asked by President Genshaft to be the Interim Regional Chancellor for USF St. Petersburg, all of you — faculty, students and staff — have been very helpful as we continue to move forward in the path set by my predecessor, Dr. Margaret Sullivan.

We should all be proud of the many accomplishments we have seen at the university – the high quality of our teaching and faculty research, the success of our sailing teams, the opening of the University Student Center and residence hall, the new Wellness Center at the newly refurbished Student Life Center to mention just a few.

 I feel very good when I walk the campus and observe the beautiful landscaping and the work of our groundskeepers and the invigorating presence of students bustling about.  USFSP is alive and is providing a great education and life experience preparing our next leaders.

We must strive to continue to provide the best learning opportunities ever in these tight economic times and we can do so working together and being careful stewards of our resources—financially and philosophically.

Please take the time off to enjoy the season and your families.  This is a time to reflect and enjoy the holidays.  We are fortunate to live in this great country with so many great opportunities.

I hope 2013 will be another great year as we strive to build a new building for the College of Business and prepare for the expansion of our Science and Technology Building.  We also need to expand our talented pool of tenure-track faculty and continue to work with the student body to ensure they receive the best possible college experience.

Have a happy and prosperous new year and Go Bulls!

The sheer breadth of the work is impressive: Dr. Barnali Dixon’s cutting-edge research to predict nitrate-nitrogen contamination of groundwater, Dr. V. Mark Durand’s ongoing work to understand and treat autism, Dr. James McHale’s focus on co-parenting strategies to close the educational achievement gap, Dr. Kathryn Arthur’s award-winning field work to elucidate the role of Ethiopian women in creating and using stone tools.

I’m just scratching the surface. You can find a more complete list here. One measure of the importance of this kind of work: Research funding has increased from $800,000 four years ago to nearly $6 million today.

As I mentioned in a previous post, faculty research helps the community and the world at large by increasing our knowledge base and offering solutions to problems. Undergraduate and graduate students also benefit by their participation in these studies.

I am so pleased that nearly two dozen faculty members have applied for funding for their research through the renewed Internal Awards Program.  This program is intended to be “seed money.”  In other words, the funding from this program is intended to allow faculty members to lay the groundwork for proposals to external sponsors such as federal and state agencies.

Each applicant was asked to explain the impact of their proposed project and to identify sources of future funding. The USFSP Research Council is in the process of reviewing the applications and recommending those the Council deems worthy of funding.  Those recommendations, along with input from Norine Noonan, regional vice chancellor for academic affairs, will help guide me in choosing those I consider most worthy of funding within the constraints of a limited budget.

I hope to have the process completed by mid-December and announce the recipients. I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of our distinguished faculty’s scholarly labors.

I was struck by the enthusiasm everyone seemed to have for USF St. Petersburg. It seems the word is getting out about what a great place this is.

Events like this get you thinking about tomorrow. Even as our current group of freshmen – the largest we’ve ever had ­- head toward the end of their first semester, another group is eagerly waiting to join them.

In fact, fall applications are up significantly among prospective first-time-in-college students. That reflects well on our excellent recruitment efforts, but also suggests that the public awareness of USF St. Petersburg is growing.

I love events like this because it gives me a chance to tell our story: We are a proud member of the USF System with 22 undergraduate programs of our own in business, education and arts and sciences; a distinguished faculty who are leaders in their respective fields who know their students and help them achieve their dreams; a growing residential student body who enjoy the beautiful waterfront campus in a thriving downtown.

You should have seen the specimens that the Biology faculty brought or the posters at the Criminology Student Association table.

It’s easy to get caught up in the challenges of day-to-day life, to meet the high expectations we set for ourselves and others demand. Saturday’s Open House was another reminder of the progress we’ve already made.

This was the first time we have held two freshmen Open Houses in the fall semester, and another is planned for Jan. 27. If you know anyone who might be interested in USF St. Petersburg, please let them know. Each event is an opportunity to meet our academic leaders, our professors, tour the campus and discover what a special place this is.

I’m looking forward to it.

Are you where you want to be? Do you need to buckle down and focus on what it will take to succeed? Are you uncertain how to do it?

It’s not unusual to find yourself behind midway through a semester. It happened to me when I was an undergraduate at the University of Richmond. I went from a small town of 600 to a small university in a big city. It was a rude awakening. I wasn’t used to studying in high school or applying myself. But I got some guidance and some personal attention and got back on track.

I asked CeCe Boyles, assistant director of the USFSP Academic Success Center, to offer some advice for students, especially freshmen who are away from home for the first time and might be worried that they are falling behind.

At USF St. Pete, freshmen get mid-term grades, which sophomores, juniors and seniors don’t get. Think of it as an early warning system. Of course, warnings don’t work unless you heed them.

If you need help, start with your professor. After all, who knows best what it will take for you to succeed? Our professors really care and want their students to succeed.

But you can also get help at the Academic Success Center in Terrace 301. Tutoring and online programs are available to assist you. You can get help with an upcoming test, a paper or some particularly difficult homework. You’ll probably find other students just like you, maybe someone in one of your classes. Sometimes study groups are formed from chance meetings at the center.

Just don’t wait till the last minute. It might be too late.

And don’t ever think there’s a stigma about asking for help. Some of our best students go to the Academic Success Center because they want to get better. You feel better once you get back on track.

Success breeds success.

I’m glad I got the help I needed when I was an undergraduate. I hope you do too.

I got the idea of having a science festival a few years ago when I was dean of the College of Marine Science. I thought, we have all these scientists working here and a lot of people don’t even know it.

In fact, the area clustered around this part of downtown St. Petersburg is one of the largest regional centers of science in the Southeast.

We have USF St. Pete, the USF College of Marine Science, USGS, SRI International, Florida Wildlife Research Institute, NOAA, Draper Laboratory.

So I thought, let’s show it off and also show that science can be fun. So that’s what we’re going to do on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. We’re joining forces again with Marine Quest, which has been around for 18 years. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And this year we’re going to have eight food trucks to add to the excitement. We’ll have two research vessels open to tours, the Tampa Bay Rays will be talking about the science of baseball, wildlife the kids can touch and Lego robots.

I’m really proud of the exhibits USF St. Petersburg will have on display about sustainability. They’re all student projects that were put together in collaboration with our faculty members, so I think it will be a good example to younger kids of what they can do it they go to college.

Science isn’t just someone working alone in a lab mixing chemicals. It’s math, biology, chemistry, technology. It stretches from the bottom of the oceans to the darkest depths of space. And there are jobs to be had, even in this economy.

Most of all we want people to have fun while they learn about science.

I hope I see you out there.

Many of our distinguished professors balance classroom work with research. It’s important they do both. Their research sheds new light on important subjects and helps improve the community. USF St. Petersburg students benefit, too, by participating in research even as undergraduates.

But research funding is harder to come by these days.

That’s why I have created the Internal Awards Program to provide seed money for USFSP faculty research.

Norine Noonan, the regional vice chancellor for academic affairs, will oversee the program. It will be a competitive process but the field is wide open. We are seeking the best ideas in need of funding. Grants will be capped at $8,000.

All full-time faculty in all three colleges and the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library are eligible. The deadline to apply is Nov. 16. The Faculty Research Council will conduct peer reviews Nov. 17 through Dec. 6. Awards will be announced in mid-December.

I am confident the competition will lead to new and creative scholarly research proposals.

We already have a lot of impressive scholarship at USF St. Petersburg, from psychology to biology, history to finance, anthropology to education. I want to do whatever I can to ensure that continues.

I hope this provides new opportunities for research and demonstrates USF St. Petersburg’s high regard for our faculty.

I can’t wait to announce the winning proposals. It will be a great way to close out the fall semester.

It’s a beautiful campus, the classes are small and the professors get to know you. Our excellent professors are drawn here for the same reasons.

I don’t want that to change, which is why I recently started a discussion among students, faculty and administrators about how we’re growing. I expect this discussion to take several months and I’m looking for input from everyone.

As most of you know, state funding has decreased 58 percent in the past five years while enrollment has gone up by 36 percent. This presents some challenges and opportunities.

We need to decide how big USF St. Pete wants to be.

The number of full-time faculty has gone down and the number of adjunct faculty has gone up. Adjuncts are great. They bring expertise you wouldn’t otherwise have but they’re not here full time, so they can’t always provide the personal attention students need.

So I think it’s the time to take a systematic look at our growth. Hopefully we’ll come up with some recommendations for the next regional chancellor. In the next few months we’ll have a broad discussion – focus groups, faculty meetings, student government meetings, we’ll look at the pros and cons and begin to set some goals and develop plans to guide us.

I want to make sure we have the infrastructure to achieve our goals, and not just classrooms and parking lots but the number and quality of faculty members we need to maintain who we are.

So do let me know what you think. You can leave feedback on my page.