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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida
Interviewee:
Interviewer:
UF312
Robert Marston
Michael Gannon
G:
the purpose of finding out, I have invited that person who knows more than
anybody else by way of answer. He is the president, Dr. Robert Q. Marston.
Dr. Marston, welcome to Conversation.
M: Mike, it is good to be back.
Hello, I am Mike Gannon and this is Conversation. This is the first Conversation
of the 1981-1982 season. It is our seventh season on the air. All of our
broadcasts originate in the studios of the WUFT Channel 5 on the campus of the
University of Florida. Most of our programs, almost all of them, are produced
live. This is one of them. In these programs we talk with members of the faculty
of the university and with others, lecturers, writers, people who can help us
understand what is going on and why. In this remarkable, diverse, sometimes
baffling world and universe in which we live. We have an immense amount of
talent on this campus and we are trying to take advantage of it talking with men
and women who come from research laboratories and classrooms to explain to
us what they are doing.
One of the things I thought would be important for us to discuss as we
begin our seventh season is the state of the university itself. It is one of the
largest and one of the most important institutions of higher learning in the United
States, indeed in the world. We are going to find out why and exactly where we
stand in comparison with other research institutions across this country and for
G: It was two years ago when we discussed the state of the university and it
embarked upon the academic year 1979-1980. Now, I would like to find out from
you what kind of a start we have made this time.
M: The first classes were held on this campus seventy-five years ago. Without
question with all of the majors that we have, we have gotten off to the finest year
in the history of the University of Florida, capped by this remarkable weekend in
which we had more than fifty legislators on this campus. All of them left full of
pride for the University of Florida. We dedicated that remarkable structure and
named it after a remarkable man, Mr. Stephen C. O'Connell (president, UF,
1967-1973) Student Activity Center. We had a great football afternoon in which
our team performed splendidly. It has been that way all fall in every area.
G: That is great. When you measure the quality of a university, I assume you start
with the students and the faculty. Let us do that. What kind of student body do
we have this time?
M: I have just gotten some of the figures for this fall. We showed continued growth
in the quality of students in our freshman class and the whole student body.
Three years ago, 73 percent of our students scored at a level above the national
mean on SATs. Last year, there was a 10 percent jump. 83 percent scored
above the national mean. These figures get compressed as you get in the higher
ones, but this year 85 percent of our incoming freshman scored above the
national mean. More than 250 students are on Merit Scholars or Achievement
Scholars on this campus. Again, a constant increase in the number of highly
talented and motivated students who come to the University of Florida and chose
us.
G: That number of Merit and Achievement scholars does not count those of which
we have no record who are in our graduate and professional schools I
understand.
M: That is right. It is only the undergraduate ones.
G: There is a tremendous demand for the education that is being offered here. Did I
not see the figure that something like 12,500 students applied for the 2,900
openings in the freshman class this year?
M: I spent a fair amount of my time at meetings about alumni explaining why some
students were not able to be admitted when they are perfectly well-qualified. As
a state and land grant university, I worry sometime that we may become too
competitive. The fact is that students love to come here and enjoy it while they
are here and hate to leave.
G: With so many Florida students applying for enrollment, does that mean that the
university has to turn away a good number of bright students who apply from
other states?
M: The whole residence question in Florida is less key than in, say Virginia where I
came from. The reason for that is any student having lived here and intending to
live here having lived here for a year can be classified as a Florida resident. 60
percent of our juniors and seniors are transfer students, so we really do not have
a problem and the vast majority of our students are Florida residents. 90 percent
of our students are classified as Florida residents.
3
G: Given the diversity of backgrounds to Florida residents today, you could say that
our student body is very cosmopolitan. They come from all over the United
States in terms of origin. What about the faculty? It seems to me that there has
been a dramatic jump, a quantum leap in the quality and productivity of our
faculty over this same space of time.
M: I think that is true. I think one has to be cautious when one thinks about new
faculty and give proper credit to the faculty that has been here for years
and that not only does it provide the base for the constant growth, but has
grown in stature while they have been at the University of Florida. Having
said that, we do find that along with other institutions in the sun belt, we
are able to attract and hold faculty members to bring them from institutions
with great prestige to come here because they have the sense that this is
the part of the nation that has the most dramatic feature. We can see an
example of the success in sponsored research. More than 1,000 of our
faculty have research grants. We have continued to grow, 15 percent, 20
percent then last year it increased my 10 percent. That is a direct
reflection of the quality of the faculty that we have here. When
I came here and talked to people, one of the benchmarks was, when you
get to leave a place where you have 200 faculty of the level of graduate
research professors. Then nothing will stop the continued growth. You
will have a critical mass. We are moving very rapidly toward that with the
quality improvement funds that we have with the Eminent Scholars
Program that we have, the continued support we have for graduate
4
research professors and distinguished service professors. I talked with
the governor last week about how fast we want to move. We know now
that we have the basis at the University of Florida in quality of students
and quality of faculty, the support of the legislature, the support in private
giving and the ability to compete for federal grants. I can give you the ten
to fifteen year plan or I can give you a five to ten year plan depending on
how fast the state is ready to augment the support that we are getting in
terms of movement of this university.
G: I would like to echo what you said a moment ago about the high quality of the
faculty that has been on this campus over the course of many years and which
made possible the tremendous growth and quality that some say, as you have
just said, has occurred over the last three or four years. One of the benefits that
I would point to from my particular point of view as one reason contributing to that
advance is the quality improvement money that was appropriated by the
legislature. It has enabled us to do things that we could not have done before. It
had enabled us to use money freely for the improvement of quality as such.
Would you agree with that?
M: I would agree. The quality improvement money goes over and above work load
for the specific purpose of improving quality. The augmentation of our resources
in the library, disbursal appropriations for scientific and technical equipment that
we have gotten and the establishment of the Eminent Scholars program whereby
raising $600,000 from profit sources and the state will match it for $400,000,
transfer that money to the University of Florida. We have $1,000,000 in endowed
5
chairs. We have established three and filled two. Just today I got the names of
the finalists and the third one. We have commitments for several additional ones
which we will be announcing in the next few weeks and months. This has been a
tremendous stimulus to growth and development at this university. I tried to
thank the legislature in every way I could this past weekend.
G: If an individual donor contributes $600,000, the state will match that gift with
$400,000 which is resulting in a $1,000,000 endowment that would finance the
salary and work of a truly distinguished scientist or researcher or teacher.
M: There is a great deal of flexibility in how the income from that endowment can be
used. Part of it can be used for salary, all of it for salary, part of it could be used
for graduate assistants, part of it for equipment, part for travel. It is to support an
individual at the national level of accomplishment. Dr. Call who was a university
professor at the University of Chicago, Dr. Peasants just this past week was
announced that he is coming to us from Rutgers, and international expert and
also an excellent teacher as the president of Rutgers told me, who will be
working in an area that Florida has a rick tradition in, that is trace elements and
effects in nutrition. It was the work of Dr. Joyce Davis that really conveyed this
day on the fire and waste land into a productive area for agriculture for citric
industry and the cow industry.
G: I wanted to ask something about language you have been using recently.
Gambling language. You have been talking about That is right out of
a gambler's lexicon. It has to do with fund raising. Tell ma a little bit about it and
give me an example.
M: One of the difficult things to do in a university in which all of the components are
important is to select one area with emphasis at a time. We decided before I
became president that it was essential to do that. If we get a major gift, then we
will seek immediately to strengthen the impact of that gift for state and federal
funds. THere are so many examples of that. It is hard to pick one. I think to
suddenly become the sum of the study of butterflies in Biology in less than a
year's time. There is an example of using Florida improvement money cutting a
major, multi-million dollar gift from one of the great collections in the world and
having them match them with other funds. This is what we mean by
We have almost always been able to move up and get something that is
dramatically more effective. That is starting investing.
G: One major acquisition or gift of the recruitment of one distinguished scholar could
produce that critical mass that then would lead to more improvement within the
same discipline.
M: The schools are essentially grants, state support and private clients.
By bringing these together we can have a definition of We can make
more happen.
G: Last year you had as a total something like $19,000,000 in gifts to the university.
Are we running on about the same track this year?
M: The audits have not been made, but we are above $20,000,000 this year. How
much above, I do not know. You have to wait until the auditors go through the
books. This will be the best year ever in the history of the University of Florida.
G: Why do people give? What are the motives for giving to a state-assisted
university such as this?
M: I think the circumstance is that people like to put their money on a winner. They
felt like you make gifts to a place that seems to be going down. Certainly that
was the case in the Howe Collection which we were able to purchase that
remarkable collection of early American writers and bring it here. It was the case
in the New York based foundation, the Good Will Foundation, Minnesota Money
in which they believed that we would do a better job in conservation than
anywhere else that could take the money. That has gone up, so we will probably
end up with two or three endowed channels from that gift with $4-6,000,000 in
land and the money to support it. I think the first and most important thing is that
you have to demonstrate that you can use the funds wisely. I would not put my
money into an institution and you would not put yours in it. I think the second
one is the support of those who love this university, not only people who have
money, but lawyers who see our clients sometimes and tell them what to do with
the money. I think we have absolutely superb volunteer leadership. I find those
amazing efforts from really the leaders from the state of Florida. They have
given an inordinate amount of their time in advising us and helping us. I think
you have to have an effective staff. You have to have people who understand
the implications of taxes and speak honestly, have credibility, who can tell an
individual, you have a tax problem, you can either pay the federal government
this money or you can give the money to the university of Florida. Those three
things, the rapid improvement in the quality of the institution, the support of
8
people throughout the state and nation and a staff under vice-president Wiggins
and the director of development, Phil Stone, who hold their job and are
professions. They do not take advantage of people. Most of the people who
make grants to the University of Florida come to us and say thank you for helping
me do this thing that I feel is so important.
G: Does that extra margin of funding that is supplied by private giving enable us to
do what many see as the dream of the faculty and the administration and student
body and now alumni over many years now, to become a truly distinguished
university, be it whether California at Berkeley, Michigan, North Carolina?
M: I have never liked that kind of comparison whether it is with institutions in the
state or institutions outside of the state. I would phase it in a different fashion. I
believe very deeply that this state has a destiny for the future of leadership to this
nation and the world, much as the great mid-western states had thrust upon them
with the movement west, California and the west coast had with the settlement
there that the eastern states had in the earlier stage in our history. A state that is
eighth in population now will be fourth in population by the end of the decade
simply has to have the resources of a major university to help it go further in its
destiny. It has to serve the undergraduate students well, not force them to go out
of state for an education. It has to have the direct services to the state and the
research for the future of that area. A great and growing state is going to
demand. That is our goal, to be sure that the University of Florida is in a position
to put the need of the state with a great destiny being thrust upon it.
G: Let me talk about building and construction. We mentioned earlier the Stephen
C. O'Connell Center that was dedicated on Saturday. I understand that over the
last six years or so we have brought about a conditions where every college on
campus has its own building or complex of buildings. Is this a process that you
see continuing? What is the outlook for continuing building? I am thinking
particularly classrooms. We are running short of classrooms, particularly for
large classes.
M: We had two problems this year int he first year. The first one was that we have a
registration process that needs to be revised. It will be revised. The vice-
president for academic affairs assures me that we will have a more orderly
arrangement for registration. The second one has to do with space. Chemistry
and some of the business areas use their mathematics, we simply did not have
the space to be able to meet the need of a group of students that surprised us
some. There was a shift towards the arts and sciences. We have had the most
remarkable in growth and physical buildings on this campus in the last ten years
that we have had in history. We are leveling off in terms of the number of
students. Why do we have a problem of studies? It is a major emerging problem
in many areas. Putting aside the age of some of our buildings and the
maintenance, it simply is that there is more to be done than we have the space
for. We have entered into a somewhat unusual arrangement with the research
part. It is jointly worked out. I chair the commission, the authority with members
of the community. Our foundation is actually purchasing the land. It is unusual
for a university.
G: Where is the research park so that people will have an idea?
M: It is off of 1-75 toward Santa Fe, north of the city. It is an ideal setting. We
looked first to find land that people would give us and then we looked to find the
best land for the purpose of accessibility to the university with each utilities and
things of that type. We are buying the land, granted at a rare amount, a gift
purchase. Our purchase price is $4000 an acre and we believe the appraisal will
be perhaps 50 percent higher than that. We are protected in that we are not
taking a chance with this money. Secondly, we will have the same income index
to government bonds, treasury notes, something of that type that we would
expect in other investments. We would that in engineering, for instance and the
health center, we cannot do the contracts that we would like to do because we do
not have the space and we hope that this cooperation with industry will enrich the
education of our graduate students, especially the undergraduate students and
will give our faculty opportunities which they do not have at present. Many
people use the Research Triangle at the University of North Carolina, Duke and
North Carolina State participate in. The growth of high technology energy in
Harvard and MIT is the examples of what we see ahead of us. The other driving
force for us is this need for facilities to be able to carry out the work that we need
to do.
G: If I understand you correctly, you do not see the same pace of building on
campus to take place in the years immediately ahead as we have experienced in
the last six years?
M: I hope I did not say that because I think it comes back to that basic question. If
this university is to match in quality the growth of the state and if we go the five to
ten year route rather than the ten to fifteen or twenty year route, the main
limitation is going to be the availability of classrooms and laboratories to allow us
to move more rapidly. We do have needs for buildings perhaps not at the level of
the last five years, but significant improvement in and increase in the number of
academic buildings on this campus.
G: I would like to add to that shopping list offices for our faculty. They are in great
need right now. Speaking of clouds on the horizon that being only a small one,
what about the cuts in federal grants that have been made by the Reagan
Administration? They had been running severe in my area in the Humanities. I
wonder if they have been equally severe in other fields such as the biological and
physical sciences.
M: I talked to some of our people in Washington today and USA Today came out
with its and my old institution, the National Institute of Health in a
relative sense remains somewhat protected, not getting the types of increases
that it got in the years when I used to but compared to the social
sciences and the humanities and other things. of the series
commitment to maintain the research base to the extent that one can do it. I
have to cut back from everyone including the life sciences and the biological
sciences. The one that I guess really worries us most of all even more than the
humanities and the social sciences is the who question of student financial aid.
We do not know. The market place has been bad. You just mentioned the
12
figures of the people who want to cone here. States have increased their tuition
tremendously, 15-20 percent with no drop at all in the number of students who
wanted to come. But as a state university, we have to be worried about cuts that
will remove the accessibility of high education to a large segment of our
population and if that occurs, we are wasting our seed corn. We are wasting the
talent of the human resources of the future. I do not know what we will do about
that. The other side of this is that no one has served and can be served if
inflation is not under control and if there is not an economic turn around.
G: That is a very severe problem. I am glad you addressed it. Let us look at the
other end of the university experience, graduation and the entrance into the
alumni. Do we have a noticeable increase in favor and support among them, not
just in terms of money, but in terms of general interest in the university and its
work?
M: I have never seen anything like this here. I went to Houston, Texas. We had
over 300 people to an alumni meeting to talk about academic programs. That
was one out of every three known in that area. The same thing was in Dallas.
we had the largest crowd that we ever had prior to the Miami game who came
there and talked and expressed pride in the university. The same thing was
characterized inside and outside of the state. There was a ground swell of
enthusiasm and help for this university which when I talk to my colleagues from
elsewhere in the country who are facing the problems of Detroit, it is a different
world. Things are really going very well and the alumni are finding a tremendous
role in this university.
G: One of the things I noticed is the new work of the Gator alumni clubs around the
state of Florida in seeking out candidates for National Merit Scholarships here at
the university. They are doing that with almost the same eagerness they are
going after candidates for football scholarships.
M: A fourth of the group there, the students whose diploma I had signed, had
graduated in the last seven years. Someone wanted to give $1000, she could
not. She gave $250 because a company would match it with $750 and she was
one of the most pleased people in that whole group.
G: Thank you very much, President Robert Q. Marston for being with me as my
guest on this first program of Conversation for the year 1981-1982. We hope
that you will join us again next Monday and subsequent Mondays throughout the
year as we talk with representatives of faculty and administration and student
body at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Thank you and good night.
Hello I am Mike Gannon and this is Conversation. As a matter of fact, this is the first
conversation of the 1981-1982 season. It is our seventh season on the air. All of our
broadcasts originate in the studios of WUFT-TV Channel 5 on the campus of the
University of Florida. Most of our programs, almost all of them as a matter of fact, are
produced live. This is one of them. In these programs we talk with members of the
faculty of the university and with other, lecturers, writers, people who can help us
understand what is going on and why in this remarkable, diverse, sometimes baffling
world and universe in which we live. We have an immense amount of talent on this
campus and we are trying to take advantage of it, talking with men and women who
14
come from research laboratories and class rooms to explain to us what they are doing.
But, one of the things that I thought it would be important for us to discuss as we begin
our seventh season is the state of the university itself. It is one of the largest and most
important institutions of higher learning in the United States, indeed in the world. We
are going to find out why and exactly where we stand in comparison with other research
institutions across this country and for the purpose of finding out I have invited that
person who knows more than anybody else by way of answer. He is the President, Dr.
Robert Q. Marston.
G: Dr. Marston welcome to Conversation.
M: Mike, it is good to be back.
G: It was two years ago that we discussed the state of the university and
embarked on the academic year 1979 1980. Now I would like to find out
from you what kind of a start we have made this time.
M: Well Mike the first classes were held on this campus seventy-five years
ago. With that with all the majors we have we have gotten off
to the finest year of the history of the University of Florida. Capitalized by
this remarkable weekend in which they have more than fifty legislators on
this campus. All of them full of pride for the University of
Florida. We dedicated that remarkable structure and named it after a
remarkable man, the Stephen C. O'Connell Student Activities Center
and we had a great football afternoon in which I team performed
splendidly. It has been that way all fall in every area.
G: That is great. Bob, when you measure the quality of a university I assume
you start with the students and the faculty so let us do that. What kind of
student body do we have this time?
M: Well, I have just gotten some fo the figures for this fall and we show the
continued growth in the quality of the students I our freshman class,
indeed the whole student body. Three years ago, seventy-three percent
of our students scored at a level above the national mean on SAT. Last
year there was a ten percent jump, eighty-three percent scored above the
national mean. These figures get compressed as you get into the higher
ones but this year, eighty-five percent of our incoming freshman scored
above the national mean. More than 250 students on Rhodes Scholars or
Achievement Scholars on this campus. Again, a constant increase in the
number of highly talented, highly motivated students who have come to
the University of Florida and chosen us.
G: That number of Merit and Achievement scholars does not count those of
which we have no record who are in our graduate and professional
schools, I understand.
M: That is right. It is only the undergraduate ones.
G: Well, there is a tremendous demand for the education that is being offered
here. Did I not see the figure that something like 12,500 students applied
for the 2900 openings in the freshman class this year?
M: I spend a fair amount of my time at meetings of our alumni explaining
were not able to be admitted well
16
qualified students. You know, as a state university and land-grant
university I worry sometimes that we may become too competitive but the
fact is that students love to come here, enjoy it while they are here, and
they hate to leave.
G: Yes, I know. Well, with so many Florida students applying for enrollment
does that mean that the university has to turn away a good number of
bright students who apply from other states?
M: Well, the whole residence question in Florida is less key than say in
Virginia. The reason for that is any student having lived here and
intending to live here, having lived here for a year, can be classified as a
Florida resident. Sixty percent of our juniors and seniors are transfer
students so we really do not have a problem. The vast majority of our
students are Florida residents. I do not mean fifty percent, I mean
something ninety percent of that classified as Florida residents.
G: And given the diversity of backgrounds to Florida residents today you
could say that our student body is very cosmopolitan, from all over the
United States in terms of origin. What about the faculty? It seems to me
that there has been a dramatic jump, a quantum leap if you will, in the
quality and productivity of our faculty as well over this same space of time.
M: I think that is true. I think one has to be cautious when one talks about
new faculty to give proper credit to the faculty that has been here for years
and that not only has supplied the base for the constant growth but has
grown in stature while they have been at the University of Florida. Having
17
said that, we do find that along with other institutions in the sun belt that
we are able to attract and hold faculty members, to bring them from
institutions with great prestige to come here because they have the sense
that this is the part of the nation that has the most dramatic
We can see the example of this success in sponsored research. More
than 1000 of our faculty have research grants. We continue to grow.
Fifteen percent chronicles out that all last year only increasing by ten
percent in sponsored research but that is a direct reelection of the quality
of the faculty we have here. When I came here and talked to people,
Mike, one of the benchmarks were as well when you get to the point that
you have say about 200 faculty of the level of graduate research
professors that then nothing will stop the continued growth, you will have a
critical mass. We are moving very rapidly towards that with the quality
improvement funds that we have, with the eminent scholars program that
we have, with our continued support for our graduate research professors
and for distinguished service professors, we do have a faculty that is now,
I believe, at the point of my being able to talk with the governor last week,
of how fast do you want to move? We know now that we have the basis
at the University of Florida in quality of students and quality of faculty and
the support from the legislature and the support in private giving and our
ability to compete for Federal grants, I can give you a ten
to fifteen year plan or I can give you a five to ten year plan just depending
on how fast the state is ready to augment the support that we are getting
in terms of movement of this university.
G: I would like to echo what you said a moment ago about the high quality of
the faculty that has been in place here on this campus over the course of
many years and which made possible the tremendous growth in quality
that some say, as you have just said, has occurred over the last three or
four years. One of the benefits that I would point to from my particular
point of view as one reason contributing to that advance is the quality
improvement money that was appropriated by the legislature. It has
enabled us to do things that we could not have done before because it has
enabled us to use money freely for the improvement of quality as such.
Would you agree with that?
M: I would agree. I wold list very quickly the quality improvement money
dollars over and above workload for the specific purpose of improving
quality. The augmentation of our resources in the library, the special
appropriations for scientific and technical equipment that we have gotten
and the establishment of the eminent scholars program whereby raising
$600,000 from private sources, the state will match it with $400,000,
transfer that money to the University of Florida. We have a million dollars
endowed chair, we have established three, we have built two. Just today I
got the names of the finalists. The third one we have commitments for
several additional ones which we will be announcing in the next few weeks
and months. This has been a tremendous stimulus to growth and
19
development at this university and I tried to thank the legislature in every
way I could just this past weekend.
G: So that if an individual donor contributes $600, 000 that state will match
that gift with $400,000 resulting in a one million dollar endowment that
then would finance the salary and work of a truly distinguished scientist or
researcher or teacher.
M: There is a great deal of flexibility in how the income from that endowment
can be used. Part of it can be used for salary, all of it for salary, part of it
can be used for graduate assistants, part of it for equipment, part for
travel, but it is to support an individual at the national level or international
level of accomplishment. Dr. Tao who was a university professor at the
University of Chicago, Dr. Cousins just this past week, it was announced
that he is coming to us from Rutgers, an international expert and also an
excellent teacher as the President told me, who will be
working in an area that is fair to his rich tradition, that is trace elements
and their effects in nutrition. It was the work of Dr. George Davis that
really conveyed this state from a barren waste land into a productive area
for agriculture for the citrus industry and for the cattle industry.
G: I want to ask something about language you have been using recently,
gambling language. You have been talking about That is right
out of a gambler's lexicon and it has to do with fundraising. Tell me a little
bit about it and give me an example if you would please.
M: Well, one of the difficult things to do in a university in which all of the
components are important, important, important is to select one area for
emphasis at a time. We decided, actually before I became president, that
it was essential to do that. So that if we got a major gift, then we will seek
immediately to strengthen the impact of that gift with state funds and with
federal funds. There are so many examples of that it is hard to pick one
out but I think to suddenly become the son of the study of butterflies, the
biology of that, in less than a year's time, is an example of using quality
improvement, money a major multi-million dollar gift of one
of the great collections in the world and of having just matched then what
other funds. So this is what we mean by Give us a leg up
and we have almost always been able to move up and up with something
that is dramatically more effective than that starting investment.
G: One major acquisition or one major gift or the recruitment of one
distinguished scholar could produce that critical mass that then would lead
to more improvement within the same discipline.
M: And essentially grants, state support, and private funds.
By bringing these together we can by the definition of parlay make more
happen by adding these together.
G: Now last year you had as a total, I remember, something like nineteen
million dollars in gifts to the university. Are we running on about the same
track this year?
M: The audits have not been made but we are above twenty million this year
and how much above, I do not know. You know you have to wait until the
auditors go through the books. But this will be the best year ever in the
history of the University of Florida.
G: Why do people give? What are the motives for giving to a state assisted
university such as this?
M: Well, I think the circumstance is that people like to put their money on a
winner. They do not like to make gifts to a place that seems to be going
done. Certainly that was the case in the Howe collection in which we
were able to purchase that remarkable collection of Early American writers
and bring it here. It was the case in the New York based foundation, the
Goodville Foundation. Minnesota Mining money in which they believed
that we would do a better job in conservation than anywhere else they
could put the money, university or elsewhere. That has gone up now so
we will probably end up with two or three endowed chairs from that gift
with four to six million dollars in land and the money to support it so I think
that the first and most important thing is that you have to demonstrate that
you can use the funds wisely. I would not put my money into an institution
and you would not either. I think the second one is the support of those
who love this university. Not only people that have money but lawyers
who see our clients sometimes who want to know what to do with their
money. I think we have had absolutely superb voluntary leadership in our
fundraising efforts from really the leaders of the state of Florida who have
22
given an inordinate amount of their time in advising us and helping us.
you have to have an effective staff. You have to people who
understand the implications of taxes, who speak honestly, who have the
credibility who can tell an individual, look you have got a tax problem, you
can either pay the federal government this money or you can give the
money to the University of Florida. Those three things, the rapid
improvement of the quality of the institution, the support of people
throughout the state and nation and a staff and Vice President Williams
and the Director of Development, Phil Stone who know their job and are
who are professionals, and who do not take advantage of people. Most of
the people who make grants, all of the people I know of that make grants,
to the University of Florida come to us and say thank you for helping me
do this thing that I feel is so important.
G: Bob, does that extra margin of funding that is supplied by private giving
enable us to do what many cities that dream of the faculty and the
administration and the student body and now alumni over many years
now, to become a truly distinguished university of the order of California at
Berkeley or Michigan, North Carolina, and so on?
M: Well, Mike I have never liked that type of comparison whether it is with
institutions in the state or institutions outside of the state. I have really
phrased it in a different fashion. I believe very deeply that this state has a
destiny for the future of leadership to this nation and the world. Much as
the great Midwestern states had thrust upon them with the movement
23
west, California and the west coast had with the settlement that
the eastern states had at an earlier stage in our history. A state that is
eighth in population now will be fourth in population by the end of the
decade simply has to have the resources of a major university to help it go
forward in its destiny. It has to serve the undergraduate students well, not
force them to go out of state for their education, it has to have the direct
services to the state and the research for the future that a great and
growing state is going to demand. That is our goal, to be sure that the
University of Florida is in the position to fit the needs of a state with a great
destiny being thrust upon it.
G: Let me talk about building, about construction. You mentioned earlier the
Stephen C. O'Connell Student Activity Center that was dedicated on
Saturday. I understand that over the last six years or so we have finally
brought about a condition where every college on campus has its own
building or complex of buildings. Is this a process that you see
continuing? What is the outlook for continuing building, I am thinking
particularly of classrooms. We are running short on classrooms,
particularly for large classes.
M: Yes, well, we have had two problems this year in the first week. The first
one was that we have a registration process that need to be revised and it
will be revised. The Vice President for Academic Affairs has assured me
that we will have a more orderly arrangement for registration. The second
one has to do with space. In Chemistry and some of the Business areas,
24
Mathematics with something they did not have to lack of space, the
laboratory benches to be able to meet the need of a group of students that
surprised us some by shifting toward the hard sciences as you might say.
We have had the most remarkable growth in physical buildings on this
campus in the last ten years that we have had in history. We are leveling
off, have leveled off, in terms of the number of students. So, why do we
have a problem with space? Because it is a major emerging problem in
many, many areas. Putting aside the age of some of our buildings and the
deferred maintenance and all of the rest, it simply is that there is more to
be done than we have the space for. We have entered into a somewhat
unusual arrangement with the research park, we joyfully worked at, I
chaired the commission the authority with members from the community.
Our foundation is actually purchasing the land, unusual for a university to
do that.
G: Where is the research park so people will have an idea?
M: It is off of Interstate 75 over toward Santa Fe Community College, north of
the city, an ideal setting. We looked first to find land that people would
give us and then we looked to find the best land for the purpose of
accessible to the University with easy utilities and things of that type. But,
we are buying the land, granted at what really amounts to a gift purchase.
Our purchase price is $4000 an acre and we believe the appraisal will be
perhaps fifty percent higher than that. So, we are protected in that we are
not taking a chance with this money. Secondly, we will have the same
25
income indexed to government bonds, or treasury notes, or something of
that type that we would expect investments. We have found
that in engineering, for instance, and in the health center we cannot do the
contracts that we would like to do because we do not have the space and
we hope that this cooperation with industry will enrich the education of our
graduate students, especially to a lesser extent our undergraduate
students, and will give our faculty opportunities which they do not have at
present. Many people use the research triangle that the University of
North Carolina, Duke, and North Carolina State participate in or the growth
of high technology energy around Harvard, MIT as the examples of what
we see ahead of us. But one of the other driving purposes for us was for
our facilities to be able to carry out the work that we need to do.
G: If I understand you correctly, you do not see the same pace of building on
campus to take place in the years immediately ahead as we have
experienced I the last six years?
M: Well, I hope I did not say that because I think it comes back to that basic
question. If, in fact, this university is to match in quality the growth of the
state, and we got the five to ten year route rather than the ten to fifteen,
twenty year route, the main limitation is going to be the availability of
classrooms and laboratories to allow us to move more rapidly. So, we do
have needs for buildings, perhaps not at the level of the last five years but
significant improvement in and increase in the number of academic
buildings on this campus.
G: And I wold like to add to that shopping list, offices for our faculty.
M: Yes.
G: There in great need right now. Speaking of clouds on the horizon, what
about the cuts in grants, federal grants, that have been made by the
Reagan administration? They have been rather severe in my area, the
humanities, I wonder if they have been equally severe in other areas such
as the biological and physical sciences.
M: Well, I talked to some of our people in Washington today and the US
came up with its mark up and my old institution, the National Institute of
Health, in a really good sense, remains somewhat protected. Not getting
the types of increases that compared to the social sciences
and the humanities and other things. is a sense of a serious
commitment to maintain the research base to the extent that one can do it,
cut back from everyone all the hard sciences and the biological
sciences. The one, that I guess really worries most of all, excuse me, but
even more than the cuts in the humanities and the social sciences, is this
whole question of student financial aid. We do not know, the market place
has been bad, you just mentioned the figures of the people who want to
come here. States have increased tuition tremendously, fifteen, twenty
percent, with no drop-off at all in the number of students who wanted to
come. As a state university we have to be worried about cuts that will
remove the accessibility of higher education to a large segment of our
population and if that occurs we are wasting our We are
27
wasting the talent of the human resources of the future. I do not know
what we will do about that. The other side fo this is that no one is served,
no one can be served, if inflation is not brought under control than if
somehow there is not an economic turn around.
G: That is a very severe problem. I am glad you addressed it. Let us look at
the other end of the university experience, graduation, and the entrance
into that status we call the alumni. For the couple of minutes we have
remaining, let us talk about the alumni. Do we have a noticeable increase
in fervor and support among them? Not just in terms of money but in terms
of genuine interest in the university and its work?
M: You know, Mike, I guess I have to cross my fingers every question you
give me, we have never seen anything like this year. I went to Houston,
Texas. We had over 300 people at an alumni meeting to talk about
academic programs. That was one out every three known around in that
whole area. Same thing in Dallas. Houston we had the largest crowd that
we have ever had prior to the Miami game who came there and talked and
expressed pride in their university. The same thing has characterized the
meetings all over the state and outside of the state. There is a ground
swell of enthusiasm and help for this university which when I talk to my
colleagues from elsewhere in the country, that are facing the problems of
a Detroit, the Michigan schools, Ohio. It is a different world but things
really are going very well and the alumni are playing a tremendous role in
the support of this university.
G: And one of the things I have noticed is the new work of the Gator clubs,
alumni clubs, around the state of Florida in seeking out candidates for
National Merit scholarships here at the university. Doing that with almost
the same eagerness with which they have gone after candidates for
football scholarships.
M: I am glad Kirsten and I would say that a fourth of the
group out, students whose diploma I have signed, that is who have
graduated in the last seven years and can I very quickly tell a 1975
ahead of time. She wanted to give $1000 but she could not.
She gave $250 because her company would match it with $750 and she
was one of the mot pleased people in that whole group.
G: That is great. Well, it is a good story. That is an upbeat story to end on.
Thank you very much President Robert Q. Marston for being with me as
my guest on this first program of Conversation for the year 1981-1982.
We hope that you will join us again next Monday and subsequent
Monday throughout the year as we talk with representatives of faculty
and administration and student body at the University of Florida at in
Gainesville. Thank you and good night.
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