President Young's Focus Group

At the 1 April 2003 meeting of UF's Land Use and Facilities Planning Committee [LUFP], Paula Fussell (Assoc. V-P of Finance and Administration) handed out an appointment letter and a roster of a "focus group" that President Young was appointing to consider the academic impact of the SW 24th Street extension and "possible mitigation of [academic] impact and/or transfer of these programs to other locations."

This was the first announced attempt by the Administration to get input from any advisory group on its promise to propose an amendment to the Campus Master Plan in order to donate campus land as right-of-way for a four-lane road. The announcement was made as members of LUFP expressed concern that UF administrators had proposed the donation without following the procedures that they had put in place to get advice on proposed land-use changes.

Those asked to serve on the Focus Group were:

Charles Frazier (Assoc. Provost of Academic Affairs)
Tom Crisman (Environmental Engineering Program Director)
Joseph C. Joyce (Executive Assistant to VP of Agricultural Affairs)
Gail Sasnett-Stauffer (Lecturer and Assoc. Law Dean and chair of the Transportation and Parking Committee)
David Stopka (Assoc. Director of Student Affairs and chair of the Land Use and Facilities Planning Committee)
Tina Gurucharri (Assoc Prof. Landscape Architecture, chair of the Lakes, Vegetation and Landscaping Committee, and ex official member of the Natural Area Advisory Committee.)


Updates

On April 8, at meetings of the Transportation & Planning Committee and the 34th Street Committee, UF administrators mentioned the focus group as an example of the Administration seeking input on their proposal to donate campus land for a road ROW.

John Ingram (Associate Director of University Libraries and chair of the Preservation of Historic Buildings and Sites Committee) was added to the Group prior to the end of Spring Semester.

The first meeting of the Focus Group was on 6 May 2003, immediately after the end of Spring Semester. It met again on 19 May 2003 and then adjourned for the summer. No chair was named at the time the Focus Group was appointed. At the Group's first meeting no one volunteered to become chair, and VP Poppell chose to continue to convene and lead the meetings. No minutes were kept of these first two meetings and no work plan was developed. By the third meeting of the Focus Group (26 Sep 2003, six months after the Group was appointed), Poppell was calling it the "SW 24th Avenue Task Force". President Young used both terms when he addressed the Faculty Senate on 16 Oct 2003.

Four months after its announcement, the Focus Group had no chair and no work plan.