by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
It takes a lot to change the name of anything, much less a college with nearly 100,000 students and several campuses.
Last fall, Florida Community College at Jacksonville President Dr. Steve Wallace made his intentions to change the name of the school public. Then, he went to work. First, the new school needed a name. Dozens were proposed and bantered about, one was selected.
A March 3 major announcement preceded by a board of trustees meeting at the school’s Cecil Commerce Campus ensued. The name Florida State College at Jacksonville was revealed and approved.
Then, Wallace began the legislative process. Throughout the 60-day legislative session, Wallace and the school’s board of trustees and administrators waited patiently. They didn’t have a choice — the Legislature’s top priority was addressing the budget. Late in the session, Wallace got word the school had a new name.
Next Saturday, it’ll become officially official. The signs will change, there will be new cards and letterhead. And, Aug. 24, current and new students will attend a new school, one poised to grow academically and in stature.
This week, the Daily Record sat down with Wallace to talk about what the change means to him, the students and what’s next.
Aug. 1 is coming. The Legislature has approved the change and you have held press conferences. You have to be excited.
It is exciting. This initiative I have dealt with my entire career. The excitement pervades the entire institution. There’s a huge amount of positive energy throughout our college community about this. People are as excited as they can be. We are really, really optimistic about the future. We are really committed to making the new state college an extraordinary institution.
How does this make you feel as president of the college?
There’s a tremendous amount of pride in the fact that this institution is now one of the first community colleges in America to evolve to a point that I believe will be seen across the country to a very great extent in the future. We are excited because we are way ahead of the future.
How does it make you feel personally?
It’s always very gratifying when a lot of hard work comes together particularly as we planned it and hoped it would. But, beyond that, it’s a wonderful combination of pride and excitement. It is sobering. There’s a lot of work to be done, particularly over the next week. Between now and August first we will do all of those things that are required to launch the new organization on Aug. 1 and introduce it to the community. But, there will be an enormous number of significant things that need to be done beyond that. And, that is a formidable challenge, but I am excited about it.
When school starts Aug. 24, what does the name change mean for the currently enrolled student?
Florida Community College at Jacksonville concludes its 44-year history at midnight on July 31 and Florida State College at Jacksonville will emerge the following day. We will do business, exclusively, beginning Aug. 1 as Florida State College at Jacksonville. That means every graduate will graduate from Florida State College at Jacksonville. Our transcripts will say Florida State College at Jacksonville. All of our business documents will say Florida State College at Jacksonville.
What would you tell the high school student who is entering their senior year and may or may not be considering your school as an option for their first year or two, but now it has the potential to be the only place they go?
I tell that student they are one of the most fortunate high school graduates in America because they are going to have access to a phenomenal opportunity. We will continue to offer an extraordinary value proposition to individuals entering higher education. We offer that wonderful combination of very high quality to very low cost. We are accessible. We have not turned a single student away in this recession. Access is here and it’s access to quality and affordability because of our multiple locations and distant learning technology. We have tremendous convenience. We really appreciate, particularly, our working students.
The exciting new part of the story is, to the extent they are interested in one of our seven bachelor’s degrees, they have access to even more opportunity and they can plan an academic career of four years in the same institution that’s affordable and convenient.
How do you deal with the student who is two semesters from earning their Associate’s degree and isn’t quite sure what they should be doing, or where they should be in school, a year from now? How do you convince them to stay?
We don’t try to convince them. We have counselors that work with students. The important thing is the student makes an informed choice and they understand all of the different opportunities that are available to them in public higher education and private higher education. But, now that’s a bigger discussion. In the past, that didn’t involve our institution. Now, for the students who are interested in one of our seven bachelor’s degrees, it can. The important thing is they continue their education and they are well-served. If they go on to UNF, that is a great outcome. If one of our programs suits their needs, we are thrilled.
Are you still a feeder program for the state’s universities?
Absolutely. Because we only have seven bachelor’s degrees, the majority of our associate degree graduates will continue to matriculate to one of the state universities. Most of them go to UNF and they are very well served. Most our students are working adults. They have families here and it works best for them to continue at UNF.
Do you see a day you offer enough bachelor’s degrees that transferring is no longer a given? Will you have 20 or 30 degrees on your watch?
Our degrees will always be differentiated from UNF’s. The students that will remain with us, even as we expand, will be students who are interested in the more practitioner-oriented degrees, more immediate career entry. Those students more interested in theoretical preparation, particularly for advanced degrees, will continue to go to the state universities.
What’s your next big goal for the school?
For right now, we are completely focused on the new organizational model and ensuring that’s optimally-successful. That will keep me busy for a great number of years.
Do you get job offers?
It is not uncommon in presidencies to be pursued by other colleges and that happens from time to time.
Do you like it enough here to retire from the school?
My wife and I love Jacksonville and we intend to retire here. I was just fortunate enough to be given a new four-year contract by my board. That is the longest contract they are allowed to give me by law and I intend to serve out every minute of it.
Is taking a community college to a state college a great resume builder? It doesn’t happen every day.
It is very unusual and it would certainly get people’s attention. It’s still somewhat controversial. The traditionalists in community colleges don’t necessarily see that as a positive thing in all cases. We strongly believe they are wrong. We strongly believe the way we have evolved this institution makes the most sense in a knowledge economy where our citizens require more and more higher levels of education. The great thing from our perspective is, this is all additive. Our community has not lost a single thing. They have gained access to high-quality baccalaureate programs that didn’t previously exist. In a knowledge economy, that’s a very positive thing.
Through the years
The following is a time line, chronicling Florida State College at Jacksonville from its inception to today. The information was gleaned from Florida Times-Union articles and the school’s Web site.
• 1965 — School established as Florida Junior College at Jacksonville.
• Aug. 22, 1966 — First day of classes at FJC.
• April 18, 1970 — FJC President Dr. Bruce Wilson resigned and was immediately hired as a consultant. Dr. Benjamin Wygal was named acting president my the board of trustees at a salary of $22,000 a year. Wygal was vice president of planning and development before taking over as president.
• Aug. 16, 1971 — South Campus set to open Sept. 2 with 3,000-3,500 students. The campus cost $5 million and will be primarily academic compared to the vocational/occupational nature of the North Campus. The campus was meant to be a feeder for UNF. Kermit Miller, who came to FJC in 1968, was the South Campus provost.
• Aug. 27, 1972 — Wygal proposes a new Downtown Campus, a multi-building complex that would cost between $18 million and $20 million. Has Tanzler was mayor of Jacksonville at the time.
• Aug. 23, 1974 — Development of the Downtown Career Education Campus approved at a cost of $12.4 million. It was to be done by October 1976. Reynolds Smith & Hills were the architect and it fronted State Street and covered 10 blocks.
• April 11, 1975 — Tanzler signed over the deed to the new Downtown Campus to Board of Trustees Chair Donald Martin. The campus covered 10 blocks (15 acres) and the land was bought from the City’s Housing and Urban Development department for $484,000. There were three other campuses open at the time: Capper Road (North Campus), Beach Boulevard (South Campus) and Roosevelt Boulevard (Kent Campus).
• March 20, 1976 — Downtown Campus is topped off and supposed to open by the fall of 1977.
• Feb. 18, 1977 — Moving in to new Downtown Campus begins. It consisted of eight buildings and Edgar Napier served as provost. It took eight weeks to complete the move.
• Aug. 16, 1977 — New $15 million Downtown Campus is dedicated. Classes set to begin Aug. 24.
• Sept. 20, 1977 — Five modern buildings are planned for Kent Campus. At the time, classes were taught out of a series of temporary buildings that dated back to World War II. They were to be done by January of 1980.
• Dec. 2, 1979 — Kent Campus is dedicated. It was named after Fred H. Kent, a prominent Jacksonville lawyer, theater owner and first chair of the school’s board of trustees. It was the school’s fourth campus and was formerly known as Cumberland Campus.
• Feb. 14, 1980 — FJC selects the architectural firm of Kemp, Bunch & Jackson to design the new $6.9 million administration building. The president of the school at the time was Dr. Benjamin Wygal. The building was 77,000 square feet located just west of the FJC Downtown Campus. The school bought the land from the City.
• March 9, 1982 — New 77,000 square-foot administration building opens. It cost $4.8 million, but it was ahead of schedule.
• August 1983 — Phase I of FJC Lawrence R. Geis Southeastern Maritime Tech Center complete. The $1.7 million center was supposed to be done by Aug. 1984. It was named after Adm. Lawrence Geis, Commander Fleet Air Jacksonville, who died in 1980. Ground was broken April 19 and Jake Godbold was mayor at the time.
• 1986 — Florida Junior College at Jacksonville becomes Florida Community College at Jacksonville. The president was Charles Spencer, who made $85,000 annually. The school’s four campuses cost $90 million and the school had an annual budget of $50 million.
• July 28, 1997 — Dr. Steve Wallace takes over as president of Florida Community College at Jacksonville.
• June 13, 1998 — Communications professor Carol Grimes allows a student to bring their pet python to class. The python, in a demonstration of what occurs in nature, ate a rabbit in front of class. This prompted a call to the City’s Animal Control division and calls to Grimes from angry parents.
• Aug. 7, 1999 — North Campus starts a 60-credit e-commerce cirriculum. The degree was called Webmaster/Web development specialty and was the work of professors Mark Barber and Karl Schmidt.
• Aug. 21, 1999 — Positive Mental Attitude Walk at Downtown Campus was dedicated to cancer survivors. It features a likeness of the Dames Point Bridge and was officially part of the Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Park. It was created through a $1 million grant from the RA Bloch Cancer Foundation.
• In 2001 the FCCJ Betty P. Cook Nassau County Center was completed.
• In February 2001, the school christened the Deerwood Center, formerly known as Grande Boulevard Mall at the corner of Southside Boulevard and Baymeadows Road. It was bought in 1994 for $3.75 million and $21 million in renovations were complete in 1998.
• Jan. 26, 2005 — FCCJ asks the State for permission to start offering its first bachelor’s degree, fire science management. It was offered on-line and at South Campus. The request became the precursor of a potential name change. At the time the school had reserved the names First Coast College of Florida and Florida First Coast College with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
• Aug. 24, 2006 — The State gives the school $1.2 million to co-run the Aerospace Resource Center at Cecil Commerce Center. It was a joint effort between the FCCJ Aviation Center of Excellence and the Brevard Community College Spaceport Center.
• Jan. 9, 2007 — FCCJ gets approval for its first bachelor’s degree, a Bachelor of Applied Science in Fire Science Management. Since then, six others have been added.
• March 3, 2009 — The school announces it will become Florida State College at Jacksonville.