Off Key Academics

In the aftermath of the academic scandal that has befallen Florida State University football players, two things are clear.

First, any time you let students, let alone student-athletes, take an exam online, you’re obviously courting trouble. Apparently an instructor giving the same (Music and Western Culture) test year after year wasn’t sufficient help. What a travesty; the biggest academic sham since Deion Sanders pretended to be a student his senior year.

Second, FSU should be glad that Steve Spurrier’s no longer at the University of Florida. We know how he turned the Foot Locker flap into “Free Shoes University.” Imagine what he could do — and still might — with a team wracked by as many as 25 academic-fraud suspensions heading, ironically, to the Music City Bowl.

Stocking Stuffer

Within days of landing the 2008-09 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship football games for Tampa, the Tampa Bay Sports Commission was still hustling. The market niche: stocking stuffers for that special someone who can’t get enough college football and is into deferred gratification. The TBSC offered tickets online in a “One Day (Dec. 21) Last Minute Shopper Holiday Sale.”

USF Expands Global Links With Confucius Institute

It’s no secret that USF has been ambitious lately on a number of fronts – from prioritizing neonatal care and diabetes research to collaborating with SRI International and Merck & Co. to establishing the Patel Center for Global Solutions.

Now add one more: the Confucius Institute.

These are Chinese language and culture institutes on college campuses that are formally sponsored by the government of China. Each one is a collaboration with a Chinese counterpart. There are about 150 worldwide and 30 in the U.S. This is the first for Florida.

The competition is keen to land one. Among those also actively interested: the University of Florida, Florida International University and the University of Miami.

“The Chinese have thought this through carefully,” assesses USF Dean of International Affairs Maria Crummett. “Education is absolutely critical to the Chinese. They’re looking to establish a global presence in multiple ways. They also value people-to-people diplomacy.”

After about a year of negotiations and an on-site visit from the Chinese consulate in Houston, USF was selected to pair up with Nankai University in Tianjin. This will be the second U.S. affiliation for Nankai, which has had an ongoing relationship with USF for some 25 years. Nankai’s other U.S. partner is the University of Maryland.

“At USF, we are an institution that is globally engaged,” explains Crummett. “We’re in an era where education — by definition — is global. So, the Confucius Institute is part of our strategic focus. If we’re not educating our students about China and India, we’re doing them a disservice. We are preparing the global workforce of the future.”

According to Crummett, the manifest interest from faculty, students, researchers, the business community, regional campuses and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce carried the day on the consulate’s site visit in early fall. “From the beginning, we were overwhelmed by faculty interest,” recalls Crummett. “And like any university, faculty members don’t need more meetings! And then we were stunned by the community interest and support.”

The Chinese government will commit $100,000 a year for at least three years. USF will provide space and personnel resources that will more than match the Chinese funding. Among USF’s foremost priorities: providing Chinese language instruction for K-12 teachers.

“USF will certify instructors,” emphasizes Crummett. “This has statewide implications.”

Initially, the Confucius Institute will be housed in a suite of offices on the fourth floor of Cooper Hall. Ultimately it would seek space in whatever is built out for the Patel Center. Courses will be offered starting this February when several Nankai professors arrive.

Among the first students: Crummett. She’s already signed up for Mandarin Chinese.

Historic History Center

Talk about historic.

When ground was formally broken earlier this month for the new Tampa Bay History Center, the event itself made history. Imagine, when the 60,000-square-foot center opens — the target date is December 2008 — it will have been the result of that rarest of occurrences: textbook collaboration among the city of Tampa, the county of Hillsborough and the private sector. For a region too typically mired in petty parochialism and political in-fighting, this is truly historic.

And how fitting that the perfect storm of cooperation will yield this $52-million project. Before there was a Jamestown or a Plymouth landing, there were Panfilo de Narvaez and Hernando de Soto exploring parts of present-day Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties. The Tampa Bay History Center will graphically – and interactively – remind us all of what we have in common, not conflict.

Green Rules

Much is being made of plans for the Prime Meridian Center in downtown Tampa. And not just because it’s been 15 years since the last office building was added to the skyline.

From the get-go, the PMC project, which is being developed by the Trammell Crow Co., has been shooting for certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Two points.

First, efficient, environmentally smart design promotes conservation and sustainability. This is, of course, good.

Second, it’s also enlightened self-interest. Going green, it turns out, can lower operating costs, please employees and enable new metro towers to compete with suburban office buildings.

Oprah Effect

Sure, celebrity endorsements don’t usually help. Whether it’s Charlton Heston, Chuck Norris, Sean Penn or Barbra Streisand, the results are negligible because such celebrities preach to the converted about their favorite conservative or liberal candidate du jour. But they do draw crowds and press coverage.

But Oprah Winfrey? She could matter to Barack Obama, because she transcends the definition of celebrity in this culture. And she’s not so tethered to an ideology that she can’t conceivably influence the politically independent and the otherwise apolitical.

Winfrey is a factor. Hardly the most important or relevant one, but she’s no mere celeb endorser.

Coke Classic

Of course, the Supreme Court did the right thing when it said federal judges could take issue with sentencing guidelines that created a huge disparity between offenses involving crack and powdered cocaine. It also created a racial divide. Crack offenders were largely black; powder offenders, white.

Both fairness and common sense were winners.

But let’s not forget the context in which the crack-powder disparity arose. In the mid-1980s, communities were pleading to authorities to do something about the scourge that was crack cocaine and all the attendant crime directly associated with it.

Powder was more of a suburban party drug that didn’t exactly lend itself to home invasions, car jackings and generic assaults and murders.

Grisly End Game

Perhaps you saw the recent story about the increase in human-grizzly bear encounters in the northern Rockies and the resultant deaths of hunters who stumble across them in the wild.

In an Associated Press account, Vic Workman, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioner, is quoted as saying: “You’ve got grizzly bears eating people who come here to hunt.”

Not to be cold-hearted, but in such hunt-and-hunted scenarios, isn’t everything pretty much fair game?