By: Bernie Machen
University of Florida President Bernie Machen gave the following speech to University of Florida student veterans at a reception in their honor on Tuesday evening at the President’s House.

Good evening.

I am honored to have this opportunity to be with you. It is great to see you and great to have the chance to meet with you on this eve of Veterans Day.

I know you share my sadness about last week’s terrible events at Fort Hood. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured.

Much is said on Veterans Day about the sacrifices of our men and women on the battlefield. This is exactly as it should be. We owe everything — our country, our freedoms, our security — to our brave men and women in uniform in past and present conflicts.

But here is something less often noted: Veterans have done much more than defend our country. They also have reshaped it for the better.

We have a great case in point right here in student veterans at the University of Florida.

Before World War II, education here and at other public universities was a privilege of the upper-middle class and wealthy. The G.I. Bill opened the door to students from far more modest backgrounds. They came in far greater numbers than anyone anticipated.

We never had more than 3,500 students before the war. By 1950, enrollment reached 10,000. As a result of the huge influx of veterans at UF and elsewhere, in other words, public higher education became truly “public.”

Before the war, we were an all-male school. But veterans wanted their wives and girlfriends here, and young women wanted the same opportunities as men. UF already was on the path toward opening its doors to women, but veterans accelerated the process. Two years after the war, UF went co-ed.

Veterans from this era — the “greatest generation” — went on to build the most prosperous, equitable, open country this world had ever seen. Today, we think of a college education as an opportunity that everyone deserves. And we treasure our country’s large middle class.

These are the legacies of World War II student veterans. They made the most of the freedoms they fought for in Europe and the Pacific.

Black student veterans did their best to be included. A country that asked its men to make the ultimate sacrifice could not continue to force some into second-class citizenship. Although discrimination remained widespread, numbers of black college students increased after the war.

The military became an early leader in integration. President Harry Truman ordered the military desegregated in 1948. It took many years to accomplish, but that order is seen as a first step toward racial equality in this country.

It is no coincidence that many veterans were prominent leaders in the civil rights movement. Our own George Starke Jr. served in the Air Force. In 1958, Mr. Starke became the first black student to enter UF.

Veterans democratized higher education, built our economic prosperity, equalized our society. Our current 23.2 million veterans continue to enrich American life. The story of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has only just begun, but already, they are making their influence known. For example, voters have elected at least four Iraq war veterans to Congress.

Many of you are skilled at working with people from vastly different cultures, tackling tasks as a diverse team and handling jobs that are highly technical. These are precisely the skills America needs to pull out of its slump, compete globally and spread our democratic values.

President Obama said in a speech this year that G.I. Bill veterans produced three presidents, three Supreme Court justices, 14 Nobel Prize winners and two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners. I have no doubt your future also will see such achievement.

On this Veterans Day, I want to thank you for all that you have done for your country — and all that you will do!

By: Jack E. Davis
Jack E. Davis is associate professor of history and Waldo W. Neikirk 2009-10 Term Professor at the University of Florida. He is the author of An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century.

It’s like an old wound that some hack doctor keeps digging at. Just as it’s healing, he goes back in. As always, with dirty hands. He is told to keep them out, but he doesn’t listen and the wound never heals.

This has been the history of a scarred swath of the Everglades since 1968, when the earth-moving equipment of the Dade County Port Authority’s grim notion of concrete-and-asphalt progress began churning up a controversy known as the Everglades jetport.

The Authority’s directors launched eminent domain proceedings for the 37-square-mile site in virtual secrecy. They even failed to inform the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District of their real estate doings. That despite plans to hustle millions of luggage-burdened passengers at 175 miles per hour out from the urban fringe across Conservation Area 3 on an air-cushioned tram.

The condemned property included the ceremonial site of the Miccosukee Tribe’s ritual Green Corn dance. But that did not seem to matter to the Authority. It did not matter that Everglades National Park lay a few miles from the jetport. Park officials first learned about the project from newspaper reports.

It did not matter that the jetport was a twisting knife in the ecological heart of the Everglades, already arrested by restricted water flow, polluted runoff and relentless resource exploitation.

World’s biggest airport

What mattered was the proclaimed biggest airport in the world. It would service both coasts and central Florida, siphoning off tourist dollars that the magnetic Disney World, then under construction, was expected to attract.

But concerned residents had a different vision of progress. Initially caught off guard by the jetport construction, they were finalizing a hard-fought agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to route a minimum water supply to the national park.

They were also challenging Florida Power & Light over thermal pollution in Biscayne Bay and had recently stopped the development of an oil refinery and supertanker port (imagine Biscayne Bay today as a 45-year-old oil-distribution center).

They were not simply environmentalists or “butterfly chasers,” as the director of the Authority derisively called them. These were good-government residents who advocated wise planning that growth merchants had historically denied them in their noisy, polluted, traffic-jammed cities. Fishermen, hunters and the Miccosukee Tribe opposed the jetport, too. So did airboat and off-road-vehicle enthusiasts.

The coalition defeated the Port Authority, which remained utterly indifferent to public opinion until the end. And then the coalition went on to create Big Cypress National Preserve to try to fend off future jetport-like follies.

But over the years proposals to convert the old jetport into a full-fledged facility or into some moneymaking venture continually resurfaced. Each time, residents said no.

Now comes the Miami-Dade Aviation Department proposing rock mining and oil drilling on the site. The public has been clear about poking that old wound. Residents want industry and development out of the Everglades.

Economics are on their side, too, the side of not having to fix tomorrow the expensive mess of bad decision-making today.

Ecological insults

The current suggestions for mining and drilling constitute ecological insults waiting for the Aviation Department’s regressive go ahead. They also violate the public trust.

Furthermore, oil drilling is not a way out of economic darkness; it is a socially irresponsible contribution to civilization’s carbon footprint and a tiresome retreat from more inventive ideas.

Unfortunately, public officials and developers sometimes listen as poorly as the hack doctor when told to let the wound alone. Worse, they think their heedlessness is good for the region’s quality of life.

As South Florida residents look at the Everglades and consider giving faith to the leadership of public officials and the old stable of growth merchants, including Collier Resources, they should find one particular fact revealing.

When one of the Port Authority’s headstrong champions of the jetport retired, he left the gray pavement of overdeveloped Miami for the quiet green 350 miles north at Cedar Key, a coveted vestige of old and natural Florida.

By: Lauren Fasig
Lauren Fasig, a professor of law and director of research at the Center on Children and Families at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, co-edited the book, Handbook on Communicating and Disseminating Behavioral Science.

As parents, teachers and coaches have long known, teens think differently than adults. So, it comes as no surprise that a substantial and growing body of science confirms that although adolescents may demonstrate cognitive abilities similar to those of adults, they are less capable of mature judgment.

For example, research in behavioral science shows that adolescents simply reason differently than adults. They are less able to control their emotions or consider alternative behaviors and are less able to consider the long-term consequences of their actions. The research also concludes that adolescents are more susceptible than adults to peer and environmental influences.

Neuroscientists have found that the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the frontal lobe area that is related to functions such as impulse control, planning and risk evaluation, is not fully developed in adolescents. Developmental psychologists also find that adolescents are less psychologically mature. During the teen and young adult years, the major psychological developmental task is forging identity. Scientific evidence indicates that these ongoing developmental processes yield adolescents who are capable of behavioral change.

On Nov. 9, these research findings should be at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration as it addresses two cases where juveniles who committed non-homicide crimes were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In both the Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida cases, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether such a sentence for juveniles is cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

Joe Sullivan was convicted of raping a 72-year-old woman after he and two older boys burglarized her house in Pensacola in 1989. Terrance Graham, of Jacksonville, was convicted of armed burglary, then violated his probation when he fled from police after a home invasion. Sullivan, at 13, was barely a teenager at the time of the offense. Graham was 17 when he violated his probation.

Both were tried and sentenced in adult criminal court as a result of Florida’s direct file laws, which allow prosecutors to file cases in criminal court rather than juvenile court.

Some argue that the legal system has already incorporated the developmental factors that distinguish teens from adults into its consideration of juvenile crimes by creating a separate juvenile justice system. But adolescents who receive a sentence of life without parole are prosecuted and sentenced in adult criminal court. Because they are not tried in the juvenile justice system, these adolescents bypass any consideration of their developmental status that might be imbedded in that system. As criminal defendants, these youth receive no consideration of their immaturity or ongoing development.

In the 2005 Roper v. Simmons case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that teenage defendants should not face the death penalty because, “the susceptibility of juveniles to immature and irresponsible behavior means that their `irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult,’ ” quoting Thompson v. Oklahoma.

The court further reasoned that because adolescents are still forming their identities, they are still capable of ceasing risky or antisocial activities.

Our new understanding of teenagers only strengthens that line of reasoning. The U.S. Supreme Court should determine that a sentence of life in prison without parole imposed on juveniles meets the definition of cruel and unusual punishment forbidden by the Constitution.

By: Clay Calvert
Attorney Clay Calvert is the Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

A running gag on the 1970s sit-com Welcome Back Kotter was a series of phony notes signed “Epstein’s Mother” that character Juan Epstein penned to get out of class, telling his teacher “Hey, Mr. Kotter, I got a note!”

Parents and teachers alike play close attention: There may soon be a new generation of real-life Epsteins in Florida schools.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month left intact a state law requiring public school students to obtain written permission from a parent if they don’t want to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. While Epstein’s notes were comedy, they are no laughing matter for a student who might, perhaps for deeply held political, philosophical or religious reasons, not want to recite the pledge and, more importantly, who might not want to face her parents.

One must wonder why the government is so concerned with enforcing this policy at a time when there seem to be much larger problems for it to tackle, such as double-digit unemployment in Florida. Likewise, students today face a host of problems, from cyberbullying and sexting to drugs and violence, on which government efforts might be better spent than requiring parental consent for a half-asleep minor not to perfunctorily perform a 31-word pledge in a monotone voice.

Thus it was that in Frazier v. Smith, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida asked the nation’s high court to consider whether Florida could “condition a student’s decision, based upon his personal beliefs and convictions, to decline to recite the pledge of allegiance upon the advance, written consent of a parent.”

The Supreme Court passed, choosing not consider the claims of a former Palm Beach County high school student, Cameron Frazier.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in 2008 had called the law “a parental-rights statute” because it “ultimately leaves it to the parent whether a schoolchild will pledge or not.” It found this a worthy end, writing that “a parent’s right to interfere with the wishes of his child is stronger than a public school official’s right to interfere on behalf of the school’s own interest.”

That decision cut away at precedent from a 1943 case holding that the government cannot compel a student to recite the pledge in violation of his or her conscience. The court there recognized a First Amendment right not to speak — a right not to be compelled by the government to engage in a personally objectionable message.

The fact that the Supreme Court chose not to take up Frazier, however, is not surprising. It hears only about 70 or 80 cases each term. Perhaps the case seemed too insignificant to garner the concern of four of the nine justices that are needed to hear a case, especially when compared to other First Amendment issues it is considering this term, such as a challenge to a federal law limiting spending by unions and corporations on political advertising.

Sadly, the high court’s decision is anything but trivial for teenagers who want neither to say the pledge nor to obtain parental permission. The Florida law denies minors the right to engage independently in their own form of political expression through silence.

By: David Smith and Ramanan Laxminarayan

David Smith, Ph.D., is an associate director of disease ecology at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute in Gainesville. The Emerging Pathogens Institute brings together scientists to develop control and treatment strategies for pathogens like MRSA. Ramanan Laxminarayan, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, an independent and nonpartisan Washington think tank whose Extending the Cure initiative develops policy solutions to extend antibiotic effectiveness.

MRSA killed Alonzo Smith, an 18-year-old football player from Liberty High School in Kissimmee last September. Smith follows a long line of football players who have been sickened after infection with MRSA, a highly resistant superbug.

In fact, the National Football League was so concerned about the spread of MRSA in locker rooms that it sent a team of infectious disease experts to inspect seven NFL facilities. Last month, the NFL released a report showing that the teams, including the Miami Dolphins, were doing a better job of preventing the spread of MRSA.

That’s the good news.

Now for the bad: Every year, this resistant bacterium kills an estimated 19,000 people in the United States, including those who are apparently healthy. This “superbug” also causes serious problems in hospitals and other facilities where it can burrow into a wound or along a catheter — and trigger life-threatening infections. In fact, MRSA infections in hospitals have more than tripled since 2000, and doctors fear that the bug is evolving to resist even more antibiotics.

But MRSA is not the only superbug. Rates of resistance to a class of organisms called gram-negatives have skyrocketed recently. For one such organism called Acinetobacter, rates of resistance to carbapenems, considered last-resort antibiotics, have jumped from 9 percent in 1995 to 40 percent in 2004, meaning these infections are often completely untreatable — most often resulting in a death.

Florida has already taken one big step toward combating superbugs by requiring hospitals to report infections, like those caused by MRSA. But the state is in a unique position to do more than simply report such infections.

Florida gets 76 million visitors a year. Pathogens like MRSA and antibiotic-resistant gram-negative bacteria can live on the skin or in the nose, without causing harm. So, without knowing it, some tourists come to Florida with more than their luggage, and others leave with more than a tan. When tourists get sick in Florida, they connect Florida’s hospitals to the rest of the country.

If the state adopted a rigorous strategy of identifying and flagging patients with this bug it could take a lead in a national fight to stop the spread of these infections.

The economic stimulus recently signed by President Barack Obama includes $150 million to jump-start a national plan to contain health care-associated infections. But federal stimulus money should not be used to pay hospitals for infection-control measures that should already be a part of their daily routine, such as using sterile supplies and encouraging hand washing.

The problem is that hospitals have no incentive to put strategies in place that could curb the spread of infections from one facility to another. When tourists bring their antibiotic-resistant bugs into the state, Florida’s hospitals have to deal with the problem, and that costs money. Florida’s hospitals don’t get extra funds to cover the cost of setting up a surveillance system that includes alerting other facilities when a patient with MRSA is slated for transfer. So no one pays Florida, or anyone else, to do the simple things that stop the problem from being passed on.

So what can be done? We have to ensure that funds for infection control are spent on activities that encourage regional coordination of infection control rather than for activities that benefit the hospital alone. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the State Health Department should provide hospitals with tools and incentives to work together so that infections wouldn’t just be transferred from one place to the next.

The rising tide of infections in hospitals is only one part of the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. Superbugs like MRSA have emerged because of the overselling and overuse of antibiotics. Our national health leaders need to step out in front of this epidemic to implement a strategy that addresses all factors involved.

But Florida’s role in the fight against these superbugs is critical: If Florida reins in MRSA and other resistant infections, the impact would be felt far beyond the state line.

Open letter from Florida’s 11 university presidents.

For many parents and students, universities are at their best when they offer small classes, great professors and lots of choices.

Others define great universities as sources of new ideas, technologies and a skilled work force — all key in an economic downturn.

With regional campuses, research institutions and liberal arts colleges, Florida’s 11 public universities are diverse. But we believe that as a group, we should meet all expectations in the Sunshine State. That is why we urge Floridians to help alleviate a major shortfall in higher education dollars by supporting a bill that would give universities flexibility to raise their tuitions up to a cap.

Whether at the University of Florida in Gainesville (enrollment: 51,474) or New College of Florida in Sarasota (enrollment: 767), students hope to benefit from the same touchstones of a memorable college experience.

An intimate classroom environment. A teacher who knows and enthuses about her subject. An assortment of classes and degrees rich enough to make it tough to choose.

This was never easy to pull off during Florida’s years of rapid growth. But now, cultivating this environment has become nearly impossible. Two trends are to blame: Florida’s low tuition, and major budget cuts in the past two years.

Attending college in Florida has always been a bargain. Our public universities’ average tuition of about $3,800 is about half the nation’s average tuition and less than the typical annual cost of day care for one child. And many of our students don’t pay anywhere near $3,800. That’s because the Bright Futures Scholarship Program or other scholarships foot so much of their bills. In fact, when federal and state aid are factored in, students in Florida only pay 10 percent of the cost of earning their degrees.

There’s nothing wrong with being a bargain — as long as students can get a solid education.

The problem is, that can’t continue. Forced against the wall by the economic downturn, the state has slashed $285 million from higher education funding, leading to widespread layoffs, hiring freezes and cutbacks.

There are fewer classes, and more students packed into them. Lecterns stand unoccupied; star faculty departed for better jobs elsewhere. In libraries, students and scholars scour a shrinking collection of databases and journals. Several universities have frozen or cut freshman enrollment, squeezing already pinched access for high school students. All this in a period when applications typically rise, as unemployed workers seek to improve their marketability.

Although next year’s budget remains in flux, universities are anticipating harsh reductions. Elimination of entire departments – even whole colleges – is in the offing.

If these trends continue, they will erode the quality of a Florida degree. That will devalue graduates’ qualifications in the eyes of graduate schools – and employers.

But the threat goes beyond education. Florida faculty bring into the state an estimated $1.2 billion annually in federal and private research grants. That money does far more than pay for equipment, lab technicians or graduate students. It leads to innovations that become the seeds of startup companies and expansion of existing companies. That boosts high-skilled, high-paying jobs and helps Florida stay in front of industry trends — for example, green energy technology.

If this seems removed from the tuition authority bill making its way through the Legislature, it is not.

Fewer, less experienced faculty not only mean fewer classes and fewer degrees, they also mean fewer research dollars, fewer innovations, less economic activity. Student and entrepreneur, in other words, are in the cross hairs.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, and state Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, would allow universities to raise their per-credit tuition as much as 15 percent annually until it reaches the national average. The bill does not require a tuition hike. Instead, it gives each individual university the ability to price its tuition according to local market value. An amount equal to 30 percent of the added tuition would go to need-based financial aid.

Will the bill, which is supported by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Senate Higher Education Committee, solve all universities’ problems? Absolutely not.

But even if budget cuts are as severe as predicted, it will allow us to devote extra dollars to the areas each university feels are most important. As Florida struggles with the recession, that will enable universities to remain valuable partners in its recovery – as educators for Florida’s young people, and as innovators for its economy.

Signed by…

Florida A&M President James H. Ammons
Florida Atlantic University President Frank T. Brogan
Florida Gulf Coast University President Wilson G. Bradshaw
Florida International University President Modesto A. Maidique
Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell
New College of Florida President Gordon E. “Mike” Michalson, Jr
University of Central Florida President John C. Hitt
University of Florida President J. Bernard Machen
University of North Florida President John A. Delaney
University of South Florida President Judy L. Genshaft
University of West Florida President Judith A. Bense

By: Win Phillips
Win Phillips is vice president of research at the University of Florida.

These are challenging times for all, and higher education is no exception. Economic stimulus dollars may offer some hope, but the University of Florida and the state’s 10 other public universities face the real possibility of severe cutbacks.

There is, however, some important news for the state’s largest and most comprehensive research university.

Awards to UF for faculty member’s research projects were up 9 percent from July through December over the same period last year. UF scientists, engineers and scholars received nearly $250 million in contracts and grants for research the first half of this fiscal year — about $21 million more than the $229 million last year.

To be sure, the upswing may not continue. A downturn in the final total remains possible.

But at the halfway mark, the rise in research support seems to indicate something significant: UF faculty remain productive — impressively so — despite a perfect storm of a national economic downturn, frozen funding budgets at grant-making agencies, and the challenges of working at an institution under serious financial strain.

The numbers for research sponsorship are a welcome respite from the gloom and doom of most financial news these days.

At last year’s end, research funding for engineering was up 36 percent. The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, 14 percent. The College of Medicine, 16 percent. There were declines in a few areas, but the majority of colleges or other units saw at least a small bump in their awards.

Researchers brought in these contracts and grants during a period when headlines talked of hiring freezes, budget cuts and star faculty members fleeing to other institutions. Clearly there is a lag between application and award, but the university’s budget has been under threat for over a year.

What accounts for our faculty’s success in these first months of the fiscal year? It’s tough to generalize, but there are probably several explanations.

One is that UF faculty are increasingly competitive with their national and international peers. The big funding institutions are deluged with applications. Decisions are always complicated, but the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other prominent agencies certainly favor the top scientists in their fields. It’s worth noting, federal funding for UF research is up 16 percent this year.

But it’s also true that the numbers reflect UF’s continued growth as a nationally competitive research university.

We are establishing informal and formal partnerships with The Scripps Research Institute’s Scripps Florida, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and Moffitt Cancer Center.

We have greatly expanded our technology transfer and commercialization enterprise, with UF spinoffs for the first time cracking the $100 million mark in venture capital investment last year. And we have emphasized break-the-mold multidisciplinary efforts, such as the Emerging Pathogens Institute, the Florida Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Water Institute.

Together, our faculty’s excellence and our growth as a research institution seem to have formed a critical mass. This is clear not only from dollars going into research, but also the results. In recent weeks, UF-authored publications have continued to appear in such prominent journals as the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

No one can say what the future holds, and there is certainly a chance that state budget problems will become severe enough to cast a shadow over our research enterprise. On the flip side, the $787 billion economic stimulus reportedly contains added research dollars for at least some federal agencies — dollars faculty will certainly seek.

UF President Bernie Machen recently suggested that UF should focus on its unique contributions to Florida — prominently including research. Clearly, our faculty are prepared to do more, and to reach higher. UF is already a leader in technology transfer and start-up companies. With that activity growing parallel to research growth, the result will benefit not only the university, but also the community, state and nation.

By: Francis E. “Jack” Putz
Francis E. “Jack” Putz is a professor of botany at the University of Florida.

It seems as though every time you turn around, another environmentalist is whining about yet another threat to life as we know it. Some seem far-fetched, while others appear inconsequential. I admit to being a whining environmentalist. The threat about which I am most distraught is of the second sort — unavoidable but unlikely to have much impact.

Laurel wilt, a disease fatal to trees in the laurel family including avocado, is caused by an introduced Asian fungus that is transmitted by an introduced Asian ambrosia beetle. Other than the avocado growers in South Florida who will watch the demise of their $30 million per year industry and the estimated 60,000 homeowners with avocado trees growing in their yards, few of the 35 million people living in the path of this killer will be much affected. After all, not everyone can recognize redbay or even sassafras trees, our two natives in most jeopardy.

That said, butterfly fanciers will be saddened by the scarcity of now-common but soon-to-be-rare spicebush swallowtails. And bird watchers might note further declines in populations of cedar waxwings and other fruit-eating species.

Laurel wilt seems unstoppable. It might have been contained in 2002 when it was first detected near the Savannah harbor in Georgia, but authorities decided to wait for more research and not to act. Even if they had tried to contain the infestation, with each tree releasing thousands of fungus-packing females smaller than a pinhead, they might have failed.

I suspect that the avocado growers who now face the demise of their industry wish that they had screamed louder when first warned of the threat. But now this pathogen has fully emerged, and all we can do is sit back and watch the trees die. Researchers can even estimate when and where redbay and sassafras trees are going to die.

I hesitate to draw more attention to laurel wilt. With economies tanking and wars erupting, people already have enough to worry about. Other than a few homeowners who will have to pay to have big bay trees removed, the direct financial costs of this tree disease will be slight outside of South Florida. So why bother providing yet another reason for depression?

My best excuse for writing about laurel wilt is to encourage readers to take a last (or first) look at the redbay and sassafras trees in their environs. Butterfly fanciers might want to photograph the laurel-feeding swallowtails while they still have a chance. Unfortunately, for Jacksonville-area residents, their chance has passed. Folks in Orlando, Gainesville and Tallahassee had better get out there this year if they want a last look. And South Floridians might want to take this opportunity to see some tree islands in the Everglades before they unravel when their redbays die.

Laurel wilt will not be the last of these introduced scourges to follow in the wake of chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease. While hesitating to point fingers at cash-strapped but foot-dragging bureaucrats, I still hope a lesson will be learned from the laurel-wilt experience. When the next biota-threatening exotic emerges, perhaps the reaction will be swift, and there will be one fewer loss to mourn.

By: Bernie Machen
Bernie Machen is the president of the University of Florida.

Last week’s headlines about the soaring costs of college may cause some to ask why Florida’s public universities and Gov. Charlie Crist support a plan to allow Florida universities to hike tuition 15 percent a year. Let me explain.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education last Wednesday said that college tuition and fees have increased 439 percent since 1982 while median family income has increased only 147 percent over the same period. The report awarded every state in the country an ”F” for affordability of its public universities, except California, which got a C minus.

There is no question that the rising cost of higher education is a growing concern nationwide. But what the headlines and news articles missed is this: Attending college in Florida is dirt cheap compared with the rest of the nation.

Undergraduate tuition at Florida universities ranges from $3,400 to $4,000 a year. Florida ranked dead last among the 50 states in the latest College Board tuition survey. UF’s tuition of $3,800 is nearly half the national average of over $6,500. And even that $3,800 figure is high, since more than 90 percent of UF freshmen arrive with tuition already paid by the Bright Futures Scholarship Program.

It’s reasonable to ask, what’s so bad about being cheap?

No doubt, Florida’s low tuition makes UF and other state universities a terrific bargain. U.S. News and World Report in August ranked UF 17th in quality among public universities, just two notches below 15th-ranked Penn State (tuition: $11,000). Kiplinger’s Personal Finance routinely selects UF among its top annual ”best values.” But here’s the problem: The longer we charge bargain-basement tuition, the closer we get to handing out worthless diplomas.

Already, thanks in part to our low tuition and fees, UF has larger classes, fewer professors and a leaner selection of classes compared with other public universities of similar size and stature. Without adequate resources, it’s only a matter of time before these deficiencies weaken the educational experience at our universities, reducing the value of Florida degrees in the eyes of employers and graduate schools everywhere.

Yet that’s exactly where we seem to be headed. Not only is our tuition too low, but Florida’s universities have seen their budgets slashed in recent months. UF alone suffered well over $50 million in cuts in the last 12 months alone.

In the short term, hiking tuition 15 percent would help us offset some of these cuts.

Under the proposal the Florida Legislature may consider this spring, all state universities would use the added dollars to try to keep professors now being lured to other states, hire new faculty — and provide more financial aid. Universities could raise tuition as much as 15 percent annually until it reached the national average. Fully 30 percent of the additional funds would go to financial aid for families who need it.

In the longer term, that plan has the potential to help us maintain our quality education and competitive research programs. History shows both are important to prosperity, especially when it comes to pulling the economy out of a downturn.

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education is right to raise the issue of increasing higher education costs.

Keeping college affordable for families is important. That’s why, three years ago, UF created the Florida Opportunity Scholarship, which this year will not only pay full tuition, but also room and board for about 1,100 UF students whose families make less than $40,000 a year.

But we also have to be realistic about the price of quality.

Let your lawmakers know you support Crist’s proposal. Let’s make sure Florida is known not for a deep-discount college degree, but rather for a great higher education system.

By: Jack Putz
Francis E. ”Jack” Putz is a professor of botany at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

If you look out your window right now, chances are you’ll spot a Sabal palmetto, the scientific name of the cabbage palm, the state tree of Florida and South Carolina. Now imagine the landscape without these icons of the tropics.

Unfortunately, that possibility is very real. A bacterial disease that experts are calling ”Texas Phoenix Palm Decline” is chomping its way through cabbage palms out in the woods and in manicured landscapes in at least Hillsborough, Polk, Desoto, Pinellas, Sarasota and Manatee counties. If you want to see what this tiny monster can do, feast your eyes at the devastation along Interstate 75 around Tampa.

I’m too young to remember when the American chestnut succumbed to a Chinese fungus, but I do remember losing American elms to another exotic insect. Last year I saw the pitiful remains of what I remember as cool shady hemlock groves in Connecticut, prey to an introduced insect called the hemlock wooly adelgid. Right now in North Florida and South Georgia, you can see dead redbay trees, killed by an exotic fungus carried by an exotic ambrosia beetle.

I do not want cabbage palms to suffer the same fate.

The ”emerging pathogen” — a generic term for any introduced insect, fungus or other pest — wreaking havoc among cabbage palms in Central Florida is a fascinating creature. It is a phytoplasma related to the one that caused lethal yellowing of coconuts and other palms in South Florida. Because these phytoplasmas cannot yet be cultured, identification involves sequencing their DNA using polymerase chain reaction or PCR techniques, which is not cheap.

Given that it may take an infected palm a year or more to show symptoms and that few palms have been tested, it is hard to gauge the gravity of the problem, but hundreds of trees have already died.

Researchers from the University of Florida and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services are busily trying to discover the vector for this disease. They suspect an insect called a plant hopper, but are not sure which. But one indisputable vector is the trucks that carry diseased palms at 70 miles per hour north on I-75.

To avoid the grim scenario of cabbage palm annihilation, if the authorities discover an infected palm in a nursery, the site is quarantined for six weeks. Much harder to control are the palm diggers out in the woods, yanking palms and trucking them around the state and beyond.

We are not certain that our cabbage palms are in jeopardy, but this seems like a clear case in which the ”precautionary principle” should be invoked. If the threat is real, the cost of doing little or nothing is just too large to consider. Perhaps I am just another shrill environmentalist spouting gloom-and-doom, but it seems reasonable to wonder, what can be done? Short of quarantining the entire six-county area where the Texas Phoenix Palm Disease is already taking its toll, vigilance is our best defense.

If you are purchasing palms, be sure you know the source and avoid buying plants from infected areas. If the leaves of your palms turn yellow and then the spear leaf dies, call the FDACS Division of Plant Industry (352-372-3505) as quickly as possible. If the palm is determined to be infected, have it destroyed straightaway, lest it infect its neighbors.

By: Leonard Beeghley
Leonard Beeghley is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Florida.

Americans go to the polls next week to select our next president. Interest is high in a contest featuring the first major party black presidential candidate, the worst financial crisis since the great depression, and the country bogged down in two far off wars.

Hence, turnout is likely to be high — at least by American standards.

In the last eleven presidential elections (1964-2004), turnout averaged 55%. This election may exceed the average and perhaps hit 60% or more.

This threshold, however, isn’t really very high — in fact, it’s abysmally low.

For some perspective, turnout in last summer’s French presidential elections was 85%. In Sweden in 2006 it was 82%. In Germany in 2005 it was 78%.

This disparity has important implications. In the U.S., the necessary plurality to select the president and other officials is typically only 28% of the electorate (just over half of 55%). Turnout in off-year elections is much lower, which means a minority of citizens selects many Senators, Governors, and other officials.

Low turnouts are why candidates “appeal to the base.” They determine not only the winners but the policies that follow. As the political scientist, V.O. Key explained more than half a century ago: The blunt truth is that politicians “are under no compulsion to pay heed to … citizens who do not vote.”

By contrast, victors in France, Sweden, and Germany must appeal to a wider range of interests and seek to represent all segments of society precisely because turnouts are high.

Although it is common to lament Americans’ lack of motivation, electoral turnouts are actually low for a more insidious reason: We make it hard to vote.

For example, next Tuesday is a work day for most people. The Tuesday after the first Monday in November was established as Election Day in 1848. It provided a convenient time for farmers to travel over dirt roads. A trip on Monday also did not disrupt the Sabbath. And farmers could balance the preceding month’s books on the first.

Today, however, many people are waylaid by the need to take kids to school, get to work, and other obligations. Although these difficulties are reduced by early voting, only thirty-two states now permit it. A better solution would be to hold elections on Sunday or make Election Day a national holiday. The latter strategy is used in France, Sweden and Germany.

Despite recent increases, our registration process also inhibits voting. In most states, registration has been closed for some time. This reduces turnout because people often don’t get involved until the last minute. As the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville noted more than a century and a half ago: “As the election draws near, intrigues grow more active and agitation is more lively and wider spread.”

Additionally, one-fourth of Americans moves every four years. As a result, at least some of those who live in the 43 states requiring individuals to register in advance will not be able to vote next week.

Although the National Voter Registration Act (the Motor Voter Law, passed in 1993), appears to make registration easier, problems of implementation have been widespread. Moreover, NVRA does not get at the fundamental problem of closed registration. Studies show that the registration requirement reduces turnout by 10% to 13%.

In France, Germany, Sweden, and other nations with high turnouts, registration is not just easier. The government is required to make sure all eligible citizens are registered.

Gerrymandering also reduces turnout. In 1812, Gov. Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts packed his opponents’ supporters into a few districts in order to assure his party’s dominance in the state legislature. One district vaguely resembled a salamander and the term “gerrymander” was born. Not only did the term stick, but the practice of elected officials determining electoral boundaries continues today.

As a result, incumbents choose who gets to vote for them, thus increasing their odds of reelection. When people know their vote for state and congressional representatives won’t count, some of them don’t show up. As long-time Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neal, famously declared: “All politics is local.” He meant that people are motivated to vote by the issues affecting them directly.

Other nations with winner-take-all systems, like ours, limit gerrymandering by using non-partisan commissions to set electoral boundaries. As a result, elections are more competitive, candidates (including incumbents) must appeal to a broader range of interests, and turnout increases.

In a democracy, elections function to prevent abuse of power as the citizens hold representatives accountable. But for a democracy to be authentic, the people must be able to express their wishes. Low turnouts mean we have the façade of freedom — elections, parties, legislatures, congress — but not the reality.

By: Bernie Machen and Patricia Telles-Irvin
Bernie Machen is president of the University of Florida and Patricia Telles-Irvin is vice president of student affairs.

As parents ferry boxes to residence halls and map-clutching students wander wide-eyed around the University of Florida, the start of fall semester always brings a contagious feeling of optimism and excitement.

But, for us, the new academic year also comes with a nagging feeling of dread that we will receive a call reporting the death of a student in an alcohol-fueled incident — a tragedy we have experienced more than once.

A group of 100 university presidents has proposed that lawmakers consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. We oppose this proposal. We do not believe that lowering the drinking age would help solve the largest public health and safety problem here and at other campuses: High-risk, or binge drinking. In fact, evidence tells us that lowering the drinking age would worsen binge drinking.

People often view college drinking as a harmless rite of passage. But the issue is not that students drink. It’s that they drink too much.

At least 40 percent of college students report binge drinking — having five or more drinks in one sitting — according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Excessive drinking contributed to more than 1,700 college student deaths and more than 500,000 student injuries in 2001, says the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Thousands of sexual assaults among college students are also tied to binge drinking.

Nationally, there is evidence the problem remains acute, or may even be worsening. The 100 presidents blame the current drinking age. Their statement reads, “A culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ — often conducted off-campus — has developed.”

Common sense says that most college students binge drink with their friends or at parties. What’s appealing about binge drinking is not its “clandestine” nature but that it’s socially desirable. Does anyone really think that if 18-year-olds could buy alcohol, the social passport conferred by heavy drinking would lose its cache?

The research also clearly supports the minimum drinking age of 21 as both discouraging binge drinking and reducing its danger.

Alexander Wagenaar is a professor of epidemiology at the UF College of Medicine who has studied this issue for 30 years, authored 160 papers and written a book on the topic. He conducted extensive studies of drinking among teenagers and young adults in states that raised their drinking age from 18 to 21 in the late 1970s and early ’80s, before President Ronald Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

“The bottom line,” Wagenaar says, “is there’s no question that raising the age to 21 had a significant effect in reducing drinking among teenagers and, more important, reducing fatalities” tied to excessive drinking.

Then as now, most drinking fatalities are tied to drinking and driving. Wagenaar’s findings are mirrored in other work: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says driving deaths among 18- to 20-year-olds have dropped by 13 percent since the national drinking age was raised to 21.

Moreover, says Wagenaar, it’s a myth that youths in Europe, where countries tend to allow teenagers to buy alcohol, have fewer drinking problems. New Zealand lowered its drinking age to 19 a few years ago, he adds, and “their alcohol-related problems among teenagers rebounded 15 percent.”

The 100 presidents suggest that a law that is not working should be done away with. But we think the solution is to better support the law.

We have worked hard at the University of Florida on education and prevention efforts targeting binge drinking in the past four years. Among close to a dozen new initiatives, we have begun requiring all first-year students to complete an online alcohol education program; established a safety zone at a major athletic event in Jacksonville; launched a marketing effort playing up the repulsiveness of “sketchy drunk guys;” worked with the city officials on high-risk drinking issues, and restricted alcohol fliers.

These efforts are starting to pay off. The number of UF students who report engaging in high-risk drinking has declined nearly every semester since fall 2004. The referral number of alcohol-related incidents to the UF Office of Judicial Affairs has also declined since fall 2005, as have alcohol-related transports to the hospital.

That said, much more needs to be done. Wagenaar singles out drink specials at bars around college campuses, saying that happy hours and their ilk inevitably lead to excessive drinking. That seems to be the point: Drink specials advertised by Gainesville bars have included “DUI Wednesdays.” We would be very heartened to see new laws to curb drink specials.

Wagenaar also says that so-called “overservice” — when bars continue to serve patrons who are visibly intoxicated — must stop. Many states have laws against the practice, but Florida’s law is ambiguous, he says. That must change.

Binge drinking is a pervasive and dangerous problem at the nation’s universities. Reducing the drinking age to 18 might reduce its visibility by allowing college administrators to shift responsibility to law enforcement or social services, but it won’t do anything to solve the problem. For that, we need college leaders, state lawmakers and local officials to work together on discouraging students from binge drinking and reducing their opportunities to do so.

By: Win Phillips
Win Phillips is the vice president for research at the University of Florida.

State policymakers at this week’s 2008 Climate Change summit in Miami will focus on renewable energy in Florida. The meeting is important and timely.

Gas, utility and food prices are spiking by the day. Concerns about global warming tied to the burning of fossil fuels continue to mount. As a result, the need for new, clean and domestic energy sources has become obvious to all Americans.

Gov. Charlie Crist’s announcement last week that he would support offshore oil exploration off Florida’s coast has grabbed the headlines. But whether drilling occurs or not, all evidence suggests the nation will still face shrinking energy supplies, skyrocketing transportation costs and the prospect of shortages. Many are looking to the federal government for solutions, but states and cities must do what they can to exploit renewable energies on their own turf.

This is especially true in Florida, which uses more energy than most other states — almost all of it produced using fossil fuels imported from elsewhere. In the short term, this makes us vulnerable to price swings or worse — for example, blackouts or gas lines. In the long term, our dependence on fossil fuels means we contribute to our own vulnerability to one of the best understood results of global warming: sea level rise.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, Florida has the climate, the political readiness and the expertise at its universities to make a turnaround.

Per capita, Florida ranks 13th in coal, eighth in natural gas and third in petroleum consumption nationwide, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Coal and natural gas powered plants each generate a third of Florida’s electricity. Both arrive almost exclusively from out of state.

Florida’s tradition of opposing offshore drilling appears headed for a major test. But for now, our only big in-state producer is the nuclear industry, which accounts for 15 percent of Florida’s electricity. To their credit, the state’s utilities have serious plans to expand or build new plants, boosting our energy independence.

As with nuclear energy, renewable energy offers hope of clean power that doesn’t contribute to global warming. But Florida is way behind.

The EIA ranks the state 15th in renewable energy generation. By contrast, California, New York and Texas rank 2nd, 4th and 8th, respectively. While Florida does not have ideal conditions for wind power, our climate and year-round growing season suggest abundant solar and biomass resources. Yet California, not Florida, leads the nation in both.

Conserve energy, too

How Florida wound up in this spot is a question worth asking. But a much more important issue for those at next week’s meeting is what to do now.

The basic approach should be to focus not only on nurturing new renewable energy sources, but also on conserving the energy we already use — tapping expertise at the state’s universities to make progress in both areas.

Academics are often accused of working with their sights set too far in the future. But our researchers can contribute much to solving the state’s energy problems today. More than 250 faculty members are conducting energy-related research at Florida’s public universities.

At our four largest research schools — the Universities of Florida, Central Florida, South Florida and Florida State University — faculty have received more than $188 million in grants for energy research over the past three years alone.

Importantly, Florida’s academic research is focused both on energy generation and energy conservation, making it highly relevant to the state’s future path. Florida policymakers seem to appreciate this. Lawmakers this year approved $50 million to create the UF-led Florida Energy Systems Consortium, which will bring together energy researchers at our universities for research, development and workforce training.

Providing adequate, clean energy to more than 18 million Floridians is a tough challenge. But Florida university research has been the heart of solutions to other major problems, from a front-line cancer drug developed at FSU to healthier and hardier crops pioneered at UF. We stand ready to make similar contributions to a brighter energy future for Florida.

By: Win Phillips
Win Phillips is the vice president for research at the University of Florida.

With the economy faltering, state and federal cutbacks threaten to slow scientific progress. As many commentators have noted in recent months, that is not a welcome trend for a nation facing the leveled plane of a globalized economy.

But there is also reason for optimism.

The U.S. research and development system, one that relies heavily on the nation’s public and private universities, remains the envy of the world. And far from stagnating, the science and engineering occurring today at these universities is leaping forward, the result of changes at once cultural, technological and institutional. These changes haven’t received a lot of attention outside academe, but they are reshaping the definition of science in America, raising its potential for good even as its financial support dwindles.

One huge change has to do with how university scientists work.

Where researchers traditionally toiled away as individuals or in small groups of like-minded colleagues, they are increasingly attuned to the benefits of collaboration with those outside their narrow range of expertise. Universities, for their part, are steadily shaking off traditional reward systems that encouraged overspecialization, replacing them with promotion or tenure incentives for faculty who stretch beyond their fields.

Another change is technological. Thanks to increasing computing power, ambitious research no longer need require ultra-expensive laboratory or field equipment. For more and more researchers, simulation has become a cheaper, even a more powerful, option. There are even fields devoted entirely to computer-based research of the living or physical worlds. “Computational biology,” for example, relies on silicon over cells.

A third change: While still devoted to pure science, universities are ever-more focused on science that matters to people today. The result is, universities are as likely to market discoveries as to publish them, speeding their delivery to the public.

These changes may seem broad and conceptual, but they have a real and practical impact. This is clear from research at my own university, the University of Florida. Several notable new UF initiatives tell the story:

* The Emerging Pathogens Institute. This dedicated interdisciplinary institute pulls together scientists from no less than eight colleges to work together on confronting the pathogens that menace not just humans, but also animals and plants. Such a global focus would have been unheard of a few years ago, with most institutes focused either on biodefense or specific diseases such as malaria.

* The Florida Institute of Sustainable Energy — Energy Technology Incubator. With a biofuel pilot plant and a prototype development laboratory, this state Center of Excellence will grow promising energy technologies from the research to the prototype stage. In the past, it was rare for universities to focus resources on “scaling up” discoveries to test their merit as industrial products. The incubator shifts the paradigm.

* The UF Water Institute. The severe drought that plagued much of the Southeast last year made obvious the growing need to ensure adequate water supplies for people and nature alike. But while UF had many researchers working on many diverse water problems, nothing drew them together to work on common goals and solutions. The Water Institute does that, and it also brings industry public policy groups into the mix.

* UF’s growing ties with other leading research and medical institutions around the state, including Scripps Florida in Jupiter, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research near Orlando and Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. Institutional egos aside, the fact is that the big questions in science and medicine are too complex for one institution to tackle alone, making linkages essential. If UF lacks an expert, piece of equipment or database, chances are it may be available elsewhere, and vice versa.

The current contraction is not the first “down” cycle in the U.S. economy in the past 70 years, and it won’t be the last. But beginning with the nation’s recovery from World War II, U.S. university research has always been at the heart of the nation’s economic strength. It was university research, after all, that sparked the information technology revolution. And university research has also been critical to the genesis of biotechnology and nanotechnology, both seen as key to a future of booming world population and increasing strain on natural resources.

If history is any guide, the sea change in university laboratories and research centers today will play a similarly positive role in the nation’s recovery from its current doldrums — and in maintaining our global status in the longer term.

By: Christine A. Klein
Christine A. Klein is a professor of law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she teaches water law and natural-resources law.

This week the governors of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia will discuss the allocation of the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers (ACF) among the three states.

As the Southeast struggles against an exceptional drought, Georgia has tried all the easy fixes. Last month, Gov. Sonny Perdue even led a prayer service on the steps of the state Capitol.

But before seeking divine intervention, remember this: God helps those who help themselves.

Looking forward, what can the states learn from the current crisis to help themselves in the future?

First, they can adopt detailed water plans.

As any canoeist knows, one carefully planned paddle stroke now will do more than 10 frantic strokes just before the canoe crashes into an obstacle. Planning is just as important for state water officials.

Georgia lacks a comprehensive, modern water code. It currently treats surface water and groundwater separately, an antiquated throwback to the days when groundwater was deemed mysterious and beyond regulation.

Existing Georgia law also contains a gaping loophole for farm use, which consumes the lion’s share of the state’s water. Virtually all farm use dating back to 1988 is exempt from permitting requirements. Even golf course irrigation systems may qualify as “farm use.”

More broadly, Georgia needs to adopt a statewide water plan. Although authorized since 2004, lawmakers have been dragging their feet. The current draft plan will not be fully operative until at least 2011, under the best of conditions. Meanwhile, the state population is projected to increase 32 percent from 2000-2015.

Second, the states must fairly share the waters of the ACF Basin.

For almost 20 years, Alabama, Florida and Georgia have been embroiled in an acrimonious dispute over basin waters.

Georgia has tried to take unfair advantage of its upstream location. It has pressured the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to operate federal reservoirs for the primary benefit of Atlanta’s relentlessly growing population.

In contrast, for almost a century it has been absolutely routine legal practice for neighboring states to negotiate agreements for sharing interstate rivers. Importantly, there has been no special treatment for upstream or quickly-growing states such as Georgia.

Third, the states should avoid short-term fixes that may cause long-term damage to endangered species and aquatic ecosystems.

Contrary to some reports, the current dispute is not one of fish vs. people. True, Florida’s mussels, sturgeon, oysters and shrimp need water to survive. But until very recent emergency orders, Georgia’s people have dumped significant amounts of water onto their suburban lawns and golf courses. And Florida’s oysters have supported the livelihood of numerous fishing families.

The Bush administration appears to be buying the fish vs. people story line. Last month, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne attempted to broker a deal among the three states. Subsequently, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a plan for “Exceptional Drought Operations.” Under that proposal upstream reservoirs would store more water, choking off flows into Florida by as much as 16 percent.

The White House gave the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only two weeks to review the proposal. In its biological opinion, the service concluded that the plan will likely result in the “take” (a euphemism for “killing”) of mussels that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Offering small comfort, the service did not predict the demise of the entire species.

The Bush administration has bought the fish vs. people story line before, and the results were ugly. But that’s another tale, involving the allocation of water in 2002 to farmers and ranchers rather than fish in the drought-stricken Klamath River Basin of California and Oregon. The result was, in the words of The Washington Post, “the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.”

Plan. Share. Respect the natural environment that sustains our rivers in the long term.

If the drought-stricken states take these measures to help themselves, then surely the rain gods will take note.