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Genshaft: University of South Florida a Corporate Power

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 21:00 CST

By Robert Trigaux, St. Petersburg Times, Fla.

Jan. 12--TAMPA -- It's not every day the president of a major university summons somber business executives up on a stage, rallies them and a large audience to stand and raise their hands "hook 'em" style and leads them in a sports cheer.

"U-S-F. U-S-F. Go Bulls!" But that's how University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft, after hugs with USF Bull mascot Rocky, opened her remarks about the university's rising regional economic clout Wednesday morning at a Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce gathering.

Genshaft excels at cheerleading. And Wednesday's performance was right on the mark. Her pitch: Sure USF is a rising public university, but it is also, in effect, a major (and rare) corporation headquartered in the Tampa Bay area.

A corporation that employs 12,000. That recruits and hires hundreds of highly educated teachers each year. That operates on a $1.3-billion budget, more than the city of Tampa.

"It's not a surprise I work in economic development," said Genshaft, who is wrapping up a two-year stint as head of the Tampa chamber's influential Committee of One Hundred, and is on track to chair the regional Tampa Bay Partnership. "That's my job."

That's certainly been Genshaft's consistent mantra. USF's scientific presence and its pipeline to hundreds of millions in federal grants have empowered Genshaft in her quest to help develop a larger bioscience industry in the region. When Genshaft talks to the business community, USF's intellectual capacity plays second fiddle to the theme of economic development.

"We are a regional economic driver," she reiterated Wednesday.

By the numbers, Genshaft's message of USF as corporate powerhouse is undeniable. To reinforce that notion, Genshaft and USF board of trustees chairman Dick Beard on Tuesday will host a university-wide public relations event to tout USF's regional economic development effect on the region, state and country.

The Tampa event, accompanied by Mayor Pam Iorio, will be broadcast over the Internet to simultaneous events at regional USF campuses in St. Petersburg (with Mayor Rick Baker), Lakeland (with USF trustee and TECO Energy president John Ramil) and Sarasota-Manatee (with economic development leaders of both counties).

Genshaft, who joined USF in 2000 from the State University of New York at Albany, is ambitious. She is pushing USF, one of the nation's 15 largest universities in students, to become one of the nation's top 50 public research universities. She said USF ranks No. 60.

Genshaft also must play a good offense as USF chief. Under Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the major universities in the state have competed for state-awarded, $10-million "centers of excellence" in specialized areas of expertise from homeland security to lasers. USF is trying to balance its competition and cooperation with the larger University of Florida and the up-and-coming University of Central Florida as the three schools vie for influence in the increasingly regionalized efforts to develop the economy of Central Florida.

In the close-knit university world, it seems unlikely Genshaft failed to notice that the Orlando Sentinel editorial board this month named UCF president John Hitt as the "Central Floridian of the Year."

"With his steadfast unpretentious manner, it would be easy to underestimate Hitt," the Orlando newspaper said in choosing Hitt.

No question, Genshaft is cut from a different cloth. She relishes attention and, as Wednesday's group "hook 'em" showed, she is ever ready to sell U-S-F to a willing crowd. Especially to a bunch of business suits.

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Source: St. Petersburg Times

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