First what do you think of the the Honors college being an hour away from the main campus I have been very against it myself I feel the smartest kids attending our school should be more involved with our organizations such as greek life SG etc. I have always heard it is politics why they are up there could you explain some more?

Also what do you think of FAU having an agriculture program UF is really the only school with a major Agg program with FAU being a science school I think it goes hand in hand.

owlcountry40 said

Also what do you think of FAU having an agriculture program

Why have one?

Rick said

owlcountry40 said

Also what do you think of FAU having an agriculture program

Why have one?

 Yes saying if we had one would it be worth it?

owlcountry40 said

First what do you think of the the Honors college being an hour away from the main campus I have been very against it myself I feel the smartest kids attending our school should be more involved with our organizations such as greek life SG etc. I have always heard it is politics why they are up there could you explain some more?

I'm not in favor of it either - in fact, I'm very much in favor of consolidating more programs and students on the Boca campus. And yes, there has been interest and discussion about moving it to the Boca campus (or at least offering it on the Boca campus too). I'll talk more about that in Part 2 of the Retreat story.

And I really don't know the specific politics behind opening it there in Jupiter other than the following possibilities:

1) FAU wanted to establish a "small, liberal arts college" atmosphere there for bright students who didn't want to attend a "large" university like UF

2) FAU successfully argued that bringing the program to Jupiter would attract bright people to that area and increase jobs

3) There was probably interest in turning Jupiter into a science/research hub and it would be easier to attract companies like Max Planck if you said they would be rubbing elbows with Honors students who could assist with research; it gives them a little bit of prestige that works both ways

4) And a longshot: the State Legislature, whether they admit to it or not, has always favored and protected the interests of the flagships. They don't want the best students in Florida to have a lot of choices. At many universities in the state, including UF and probably FSU, the Honors College is on campus which furthers the appeal of attending that school. So FAU might have been playing it safe and said, "Look, we won't even have it on the Boca campus" to try and appease them, like they did when we first opened a medical school but did it under Miami's name to get it approved.

But if anybody knows more on that, please share with us.

owlcountry40 said

Also what do you think of FAU having an agriculture program UF is really the only school with a major Agg program with FAU being a science school I think it goes hand in hand.

Having lived in Gainesville and seen their tree farms, animal farms, rows of greenhouses and everything else, I can tell you that we'd need a ton of resources (probably in excess of $100M) to get something like that started. And the State Legislature would want to know why we're investing in all of this infrastructure when we already have a successful program in place at UF.

They don't like paying for "duplication of services" just because a particular university wants to be good at something too. So a full-scale agriculture program just wouldn't go through. You'd have to argue that south Florida provides opportunities to study aspects of agriculture that UF can't do in north Florida, which is also an uphill battle since UF has research facilities all over the state… including right here in south Florida.

Now, aquaculture would be a different story, as that would play into our marine research priorities. We've got Harbor Branch, a fish farm at Boca and we're growing various sea plants at Gumbo Limbo.

We could have one of the largest aquaculture programs in the U.S. if we threw more resources at it.