Lane Kiffin‘s debut at Florida Atlantic lasted nearly six hours, featured three lightning delays and ended with almost no one left in the stands. It was unforgettable. It was also unsuccessful.
Florida universities are hiring more faculty, providing more scholarships and expanding course offerings and academic counseling with a $121 million boost in funding provided by the Legislature this year.
Former state Rep. Tom Grady will take Jimmy Patronis‘ place on the Constitution Revision Commission (CRC), Gov. Rick Scott announced Thursday evening. In picking Grady, a Naples attorney and a friend of Scott’s, the governor passed over the three alternates he previously selected to fill an empty seat on the commission, which will review the state’s governing document for possible changes.
Now that Jimmy Patronis is leaving the Public Service Commission and Constitution Revision Commission to become the state’s next Chief Financial Officer, Gov. Rick Scott has to replace him on those panels. The Florida Public Service Commission Nominating Council is charged with “screening and nominating applicants for appointment by the Governor to fill vacancies on the Florida Public Service Commission,” its website says. (The 12-member council, by the way, has four vacancies, including its vice chair, according to its website.) Patronis’…
Countin’ down to sine die, the House and Senate education budget conferees have bumped the secretive university and state college “direct support organizations” up the chain of command for further grinding. Soon, we’ll know how serious the House is about forcing the DSOs to operate in the sunshine. DSO top brass are paid princely salaries with public funds. Yet, they operate with all the transparency of a Swiss bank. We hear about them only when they do something really stupid…
Brand-in-himself (and biggest celebrity football coach in our state) Lane Kiffin has hit the headline-grabbing ground running. Just weeks on the job at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Kiffin is providing elite sportswriters and citizen journalists with reams of revealing insights into the mind of the young genius chosen to channel FAU’s “unbridled ambition” into a winning season at the jock palace formerly known as GEO Group Stadium. The ink was barely dry on Kiffin’s $950,000 contract when he struck a blow…
In 1962, a legislative “initial operating money” appropriation plus private donations for “architect fees, salaries and other expenses” added up to $400,000 in seed corn for Florida Atlantic University. It still adds up to more money than most working folks will see in 10 years, but it’s less than half of what the school will pay its new head football coach, Lane Kiffin (rhymes with “What is FAU sniffn’?). To be fair, Kiffin is almost as “big-time” as FAU Football’s…
