FAUfasho said

Anyway, the fact that students/alumni/faculty cared THIS much about this money shows that their time/money/education/experience spent FAU means something to them.

If this is the case then everyone that signed that petition should do their part…. if not, then they don't really care about FAU….some suggestions..

-Buy game tickets- I don't care if you give them away, use them, or make paper airplanes out of them…but a cheering butt in the seat would be best…

- Buy merchandise- wear it and be proud..or give it to someone who will….

- Donate to the football program you just helped to cripple…every dollar helps…if you work for a big corporation, they might match your donation

- and last but not least….you got what you wanted, now drop it…your mouth can provide the same negative publicity you were fighting to keep away from the university…

I can almost 100% guarantee you that the protestors don't care about the athletic program. Do these people strike you as sports fans? They've probably never been to a game and never will. That's not their interest. They probably see football as a barbaric thing.

I'm with Tim - Saunders is a pretty poor University President. She wasn't my favorite during the Presidential search process but I did like that she was trying to shore up our weaknesses and present the university as a more serious academic institution.

However, she has done little to move the needle beyond restructure departments and now she's completely botched all of these PR disasters, exacerbating the situation for everyone involved.

Yet the BOT will probably give her a stellar annual review and a $50,000 bonus regardless because that's easier than having to sit through another Presidential search. This is why it's so hard for us to move forward.

We lucked out with Brogan. He wasn't perfect, the faculty wasn't thrilled with him, but he was a true leader. He pushed this university forward. It's a shame we had to lose him.

Owl2Doc said

I can almost 100% guarantee you that the protestors don't care about the athletic program. Do these people strike you as sports fans? They've probably never been to a game and never will. That's not their interest. They probably see football as a barbaric thing.

I'm with Tim - Saunders is a pretty poor University President. She wasn't my favorite during the Presidential search process but I did like that she was trying to shore up our weaknesses and present the university as a more serious academic institution.

However, she has done little to move the needle beyond restructure departments and now she's completely botched all of these PR disasters, exacerbating the situation for everyone involved.

Yet the BOT will probably give her a stellar annual review and a $50,000 bonus regardless because that's easier than having to sit through another Presidential search. This is why it's so hard for us to move forward.

We lucked out with Brogan. He wasn't perfect, the faculty wasn't thrilled with him, but he was a true leader. He pushed this university forward. It's a shame we had to lose him.

X2

I don't think it was the student protestors that brought this down. The countless amount of bad press brought this down. The millions of people seeing Colbert make fun of it, it was on all national news levels and not much of it was favorable. The student protestors wouldn't have made any difference if the outside press had been positive.

Are those orange inmate shirts still available?  Can we wear them to the first home game as a form of "protest" against the protestors?  Like earlier posters have said, nothing has changed except for the fact that we lost $6mil and everyone now knows the going rate for our naming rights.  Congratulations, I'm sure the juvenile delinquents in the GEO group prisons are dancing in their cell blocks celebrating the news right now.

This is nothing new though, this whole country has been watered down because of tiny segments of the population whining and getting their way.  I wish we could go back to the "If you don't like it don't go" mentality. 

Rick said

“What was originally intended as a gesture of GEO’s goodwill to financially assist the University’s athletic scholarship program has surprisingly evolved into an ongoing distraction to both of our organizations,” said GEO Group Chairman and CEO George Zoley.

In this edition of Tuesday Morning Quarterback, here's an idea, George:  Why not hold a presser and put all the issues on the table…explain what the concerns are and how you have addressed them or plan to address them moving forward?

With the choice of Fight or Flight, everyone chose Flight, abandoned the burrow, and left the young behind to be eaten by feral cats.

fauowl said

With the choice of Fight or Flight, everyone chose Flight, abandoned the burrow, and left the young behind to be eaten by feral cats.

Well put!

(literally)

;D

In the end, there just wasn't anything in it for GEO to continue to get it's name smeared and $500K a year wasn't enough for FAU to get more bad press.  It's just a shame that it couldn't have gone differently and been taken as the gift it was intended to be, but that's the world today.  People refuse to see anything but their own side of the story these days. 

It's unfortunate that the administration didn't assess the risk of negative press before they even started to chasing the Geo Group. I suspect there was considerable effort in getting them to sign and maybe that effort could have been channeled to a better deal.

I am disappointed in Saunders, she just doesn't seem to have a clue as to how to run a major university. Bad PR move to take the money but really makes us look like we don't know what we are doing when we give it back because we didn't understand the negative impact. Hopefully we get a better deal out of this in the long run.

I'd like to see some of the next donation go toward  building a real facility (with flushable toilets) for our #25 baseball team!

This is a disaster. What company is going to even go near naming our stadium now? It took years to sign up GEO Group. It seems as though the stadium will remain nameless for a long, long time.