Senator Thrasher's interview

John Thrasher was interviewed today, and it was certainly eventful.[1] The papers are reporting that approximately 200 faculty and students attended the faculty forum and approximately 150 attended the student forum. The room was packed for the faculty forum—and I hope the other candidates’ forums will be as well. He started off as he did last time with a this-is-my-life intro, and then faculty began to ask questions about everything from how Thrasher will use the faculty expertise on campus (to which he answered resources and higher faculty salaries, two consistent and constant messages), to the effects of the passing of HB115/SB318 that eliminated the sunshine in meetings between direct support organizations and research donors (which I spoke against in front of Thrasher’s committee during the legislative session), to climate change questions (he said he’d need to consult scientists), to an evolution question (everyone seemed to gasp before and after he said he has “a great faith to guide him”), to anti-union and anti-tenure legislation (he wouldn’t address his anti-union stance and mentioned bad K-12 teachers when discussing tenure), to sexual assault on campus (he did mention yesterday’s New York Times article and noted policies that are already in place—which aren’t enough as noted in the article). 

A few people remarked that it was surprising how quickly Thrasher lost his temper in the faculty forum. When he was answering the question about climate change, someone in the front row chuckled, and he threatened to leave because he was being heckled. That was a revealing moment. He recovered, but the damage was done.

One of the funniest lines was from a faculty member who noted that newspapers always call Thrasher a “powerful” senator, as if "powerful" was Thrasher’s first name. People also laughed when the same faculty member asked, it is said that people are afraid of not making you president; what would happen to us if we don't select you as president?

During the student forum, a student mentioned that Thrasher received campaign money from the Koch brothers, and Thrasher denied receiving said money. I tweeted this and asked for a fact check. Several people tweeted back the evidence that he did indeed receive money from Koch Industries.

Unfortunately, Thrasher did not provide a vision for the university, nor did he answer questions directly, nor did he provide details about how he was going to raise state and private funding. It was as if he was campaigning, and he thought the only thing we care about is salary. Don’t get me wrong—salary is an issue—but it is not the only thing most faculty members think about. Also important are the protection of shared governance, academic freedom, and academic integrity and the reputation of the institution and how the appearance of political cronyism may affect our reputation (which someone asked about as well, though not quite in those words). Rather than providing a vision of where we need to go and how we are going to get there, he often answered questions by saying he’d need to talk things out with the different constituencies who asked him the questions. While I am all about listening to others, this showed his lack of awareness of university life and values and concerns. And when asked about his voting record, he either couldn’t remember or he’d say it doesn’t matter now what he voted on in the past—unless it was about the medical school. That was a bit surprising, as I had expected that he'd be prepared to answer these questions.

Deep down I think I wanted him to do well in this interview considering that people still think the fix is in and he will be our next president. I even asked him jokingly (admittedly after a glass of wine at the reception) if he planned to try to fire me, and he assured me he wouldn’t (I have witnesses!). Perhaps some would disagree, but it seemed to me that he simply didn’t demonstrate any understanding of the academy. And that is a glaring problem. 

Another problem of course is the divisiveness. As at least one of the other candidates from last week's interviews noted that if you don't have the faculty behind you, you can't be an effective leader and the institution suffers. The divisiveness was palpable in both forums I attended, and I fear this will have long term effects if he's anointed president, including difficulties retaining our great faculty and trying to attract new faculty.

I think overall the message today was that John Thrasher loves FSU and that’s why he wants to be president. We really don’t know how he’s going to do it, but we do know that he wants it. And we know that he was politicking us all the way to Westcott.