BOG chair to trustees: Overhaul will be "definitive setback"

Carolyn Roberts, chair of the embattled Board of Governors, sent a lengthy e-mail to all university trustees Saturday -- warning them that a proposed constitutional amendment to strip the Board of its powers will be a "definitive setback" that returns colleges "to an era where our public universities are pitted against each other for scarce resources."

"This proposed initiative will not be good for our students," Roberts writes. "It will not be good for Florida. Why? It ensures that educational quality will be sacrificed to political expediency. It ensures that political micromanagement will drive our decision-making."

In closing, she urges trustees to call their district legislators "and ask them to vote no," preferably before Senate and House committees consider the proposed amendment language this first week of session.