by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
John Delaney is not afraid of a challenge, whether it be as the mayor of Jacksonville or the president of a growing university.
Delaney spent eight years as the mayor of Jacksonville. During that time, he convinced voters to approve a 30-year tax that has produced a new arena, baseball park, equestrian center, main library, several new branch libraries and renovations to others, miles of resurfaced roads and sidewalks and, eventually, a new county courthouse.
As president of the University of North Florida, Delaney is in the process of converting the school’s athletic program from Division II to Division I, rolling out a rebranding of the school complete with a new logo, building new facilities and adding academic programs.
On June 30, 2003, Delaney officially ended his two-term tenure as mayor. Two days later, he set up shop at his new office at UNF. For Delaney, the transition between jobs was a pleasant one.
“I have never worked for a place where the people feel so proud about the place they are working for. Everyone from the faculty to the custodial workers,” he said. “There is the quality of people that work here that is very good; they really feel good about the institution. It was a very pleasant discovery.”
Delaney has been at his current position for two years and one month. The differences between running a city and a university were something he had to get used to.
“A major difference is that the faculty really runs the university,” he said. “The faculty has a major input on what goes on with the university, but it is a shared governess.”
An example of this shared governess occurred when Delaney had to fill the vice president of academic affairs position. The university’s constitution requires a 17-member search committee that approves candidates for certain university administrators.
“The president chooses five, the faculty must have the majority of members which is nine and there is a student representative with the other non-faculty groups that make up the last three,” he said. “As mayor, I primarily worked with City Council to help with decision making and now I do a lot more consensus building with the faculty, and I like that because I like to bounce things off other people and get their input.”
After two years he has become accustomed to the changes between the two positions and began implementing new plans to help the university evolve into another major university in the state.
“In this setting, you are around bright people, energetic people that care about this place,” said Delaney.
There are many changes that are going to be taking place at UNF with the first being the new logo and branding initiative.
“It was like a secret handshake; no one from outside of the university knew what our logo was showing,” he said. “The problem with the old logo was the ‘N’ with the outline of Florida.”
Delaney was told by public relations experts that the logo failed the bumper sticker test because it was hard to see the state of Florida in the “N.”
“With the new logo we are stylizing the osprey to give it a fresher look that identifies our mascot,” said Delaney. “There wasn’t an image that pops out with the old logo. There was no identity for our school and we want to enforce that.”
Before changing the logo he said they asked the questions, “What are we? Who are we and what do we do well?”
“We educate people well,” said Delaney. “The faculty wants to make the students learn.”
Delaney explained there are three types of schools: research schools like the University of Florida, teaching schools like Jacksonville University and comprehensive schools which is UNF right now.
“We want to tilt that needle and highlight teaching,” he said. “Each university has their own mission and we want to zero in on teaching.”
The university’s seal will remain the same, but the athletic symbols will be updated to an “N” and an osprey head.
“All of the symbols will roll out that branding initiative,” said Delaney.
Another major change that won’t go fully into effect for another four years is promoting all sports at UNF to Division I.
“I told the board of trustees that the sports offered here can be changed to Division I if these three conditions were met: no football, no change in academic admission standards for athletes and no money that could go to academics would be diverted to athletics,” he said.
For the next four years, UNF cannot play in any NCAA tournaments because of the transition phase.
“We have 15,000 students. If we want to be the best, we have to compete against the best,” he said.
Although they can’t compete in NCAA tournaments yet, the school joined the Atlantic Sun Conference and they will be able to play in A-Sun championships beginning this fall.
“So far the coaches have been delighted with recruiting, even though the athletes can’t play in NCAA tournaments,” said Delaney. “The change to the Atlantic Sun Conference gives us a little burst and I think we will be able to compete in the conference.”
Even though incoming freshman athletes will not get a chance to compete in the NCAA, Delaney said, “the coaches, existing players, the athletic department and faculty all help with our profile that attracts the athletes.”
Not only are changes being made within the university, but the physical appearance of the campus is slowly changing, too. Since UNF is located on a nature preserve, the university has found a way to make its campus more environmentally friendly.
“The new Social Sciences building will be the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building in Jacksonville,” said Delaney. “It is designed to conserve everything from the level of energy used to the heating and cooling equipment to the insulation and plumbing.”
After this first building is built there are plans to have more buildings like this on campus and to convert existing buildings into LEED certified buildings.
“The campus has a particularly protective approach to the environment,” said Delaney. “And we want to try and nestle those buildings in.”
With his political background as mayor for eight years, politics is still in the back of his mind. As mayor, he was rumored to be interested in one day running for governor of Florida.
“You never say never,” Delaney said about going back into politics. “But I would like to stay here.”
The university is growing and out of 60 colleges and universities, counting community colleges in Florida, UNF is the fourth-highest in SAT scores and GPAs, Delaney said. The school is hoping to pass the University of Central Florida, which is in third.
As mayor, Delaney changed Jacksonville in ways that will be seen and felt for decades. Moving into his third year as president of UNF, Delaney is in the process of establishing UNF as a big university.
“In any job there are things that you’ll miss. As mayor it was a rewarding job because you felt like you were changing the community,” he said. “At the same time, it is rewarding here, too. You graduate 3,000 people a year and you would like to think you had some kind of impact on them.”