Don’t break what’s working in higher education in Florida

On Sept. 28 Hurricane Ian struck my community and devastated the rural island where I live. When my husband and I returned from our multiple evacuations, we found the road back to our island was literally gone and had to stay with friends until a temporary dirt pathway was built. What awaited us was worse than we expected: our home totaled by the five-foot surge — our furniture broken, family heirlooms smashed, and clothing soaked. Numb with shock, we emptied our life on the curb and scrambled to find a rental in town.

Our story is similar to so many members of Southwest Florida, but with one difference: the entire time we were evacuating, struggling to empty out our house (I won’t even try to convey the smell of the mold inside), and trying to settle somewhere, I was teaching at our local college. We were closed ten days, which is a lifetime for students — and our campus sustained damage from the hurricane winds. A perfect storm for a chaotic semester, just when things had settled after COVID lockdowns. But, like my colleagues, my sole focus was to redesign the class on the fly, give the students a chance to share their trauma, and find a way to make certain they still finished the required essays and met the course outcomes. And we did.

In spite of the post-hurricane chaos, our college kept going, making certain that we kept our academic standards intact, in spite of the massive destruction and upended lives, never once doubting we could finish the semester successfully. I felt incredibly proud of my students, colleagues and administrators. That’s what higher education is all about: keeping high standards and being flexible in the face of incredible challenges.

Recently, Governor DeSantis of Florida has sought to paint higher education in Florida on a canvas defined by the broad stroke of “indoctrination.” This portrait of post-secondary schools is quite disturbing to me both as a citizen and a long-term college faculty member; and, it is completely distorted from the reality of what occurs at educational institutions (such as I described above). I can say confidently that in the three decades during which I have taught English composition and participated in the process of curriculum development and accreditation in Southwest Florida, two goals have driven what we do in the classroom: What skills do my students need to be successful in their chosen field; and what do my students need to know to be an educated person? It is that simple. As one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in a letter to Joseph Priestley (Jan. 18, 1800), “We wish to establish [in Virginia] . . . more centrally for the state an [sic] University on a plan so broad & liberal & modern, as to be worth patronizing with the public support and be a temptation to the youth of the other states to come, and drink of the cup of knowledge.” Thus, was born the foundation of what we term the “General Education Curriculum,” which is the bedrock of every public institution of higher learning in the United States — a system of which I am enormously proud.

The governor references the “General Education Curriculum” which he denigrates with the popular (and incorrect) slogans of “trendy” and “woke.” Ironically, I can say that during my many years in higher education, this core of classes which every student must take for an A.A. degree is quite traditional. It’s the contemporary version of the Nineteenth Century view of education as “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.” At my college, every student takes 36 hours, including two writing classes, two humanities classes, three social sciences classes, two math classes, and two natural sciences classes. Then, they add their required courses for their chosen degree and additional electives. This General Education core is what Jefferson was proposing and is reviewed and assessed rigorously today at similar colleges and universities across the country. In addition, the accrediting agencies that review higher education institutions, far from being what the governor terms as “monopolies,” function much as auditors in a business setting; they review the academics, policies, and financial stability of a school. They perform an essential function to make certain students always receive quality degrees.

The governor suggests that higher education has some sort of sinister motive, seeking to “indoctrinate” students (to what, he never says); however, nothing could be farther from the truth. I teach my students how to write, whatever is happening around us, whether it is a pandemic or a hurricane. That’s all. I teach essay structure, standard American English, research skills, and critical thinking. When they leave my classes, I want them to be able to write a business letter, an email, or a report, using all of the skills that we have covered in our course. My students have become successful lawyers, accountants, nurses, doctors, and teachers, many of whom work and live in Southwest Florida. This is not to say every class is perfect, but I try my very best to make every student successful. That’s what teaching is all about: professionalism and compassion. Not buzzwords.

Governor DeSantis is leading the state down a wrong road with his vitriol against the long-standing educational institutions that have served Southwest Florida well when perhaps his time would be better spent addressing the post-hurricane problems in our community. I would urge every member of our community who has attended our colleges and universities in this area to write to the governor in support of them (they rank as some of the highest in the nation by the governor’s own words). Why seek to destroy a system of education that is producing generation after generation of successful graduates?

Jefferson would be ashamed.

Marty Ambrose is a historical fiction author who has taught full-time and part-time as an English professor at Florida Southwestern State College for three decades. She has extensive experience in curriculum development, academic assessment and SACS accreditation.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Don’t break what’s working in higher education in Florida