As a proud University of Florida alumnus, I have a soft spot for my school; I love my alma mater so much that I always open marketing emails from UF when they arrive in my inbox.
The most recent, instead of proclaiming the typical water-in-wine scientific breakthrough by Jesus (who happens to work in UF’s chemistry department), made an announcement that many already know: UF is always a school (tied) in the top five (public).
Cue a sigh of relief from everyone.
While many consider UF’s maintenance of its top-five ranking a triumph, I have to admit I feel something like trepidation instead.
General classification of the UF went from 28 to 29.
As stated in the press release, “UF’s Reputation Score of 3.8, a key metric in ranking analysis, remained unchanged from last year.” At the same time, other metrics like our alumni giving rate saw solid gains.
I didn’t know the metric of a reputation score before. If this was an unweighted GPA, 3.8 out of 4 would be great.
Unfortunately, the reputation score is out of five. If UF was an Airbnb, it would be delisted. If this was a restaurant on Google Maps, I probably wouldn’t eat there. (Funny because eating and sleeping were the two main things I did at UF.)
That’s a shame. Billions of dollars spent and even though our school has unquestionably improved, people’s impression of our school has apparently not improved.
I mean, it’s not a question of why: whether it’s ban teachers to testify against Florida partially unconstitutional electoral law, giving a clown a second chance at life Florida Surgeon General or eliminating a beloved Honors Program Directorsome leaders in our university and perhaps especially in our state government have given people reason to look upon our school with disdain.
But to be fair, other comparable universities have also damaged their reputation.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is tied with UF for the top five spots, had its own national scandal when its board of trustees briefly denied tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project.
The University of California, Santa Barbara, tied for fifth with UF and UNC-Chapel Hill last year, had its own problem when the school, spurred on by a donor, thought it would be a good idea to spend some hundreds of millions of dollars build a nearly windowless dormitory.
We were lucky. From a national tidal wave of misdeeds and stupidity resulting from outside influences, UF emerged not leading, but not quite late. We have stagnated.
More from Zachariah Chou:
Farewell to UF’s Karl Marx Study Hall, more confusing in death than in life
My race may have played a role in college rejections, but I support affirmative action
UF needs comprehensive diversity education
Imagine yourself in a plane taking off. After gaining altitude, the aircraft stalled. It is no longer gaining altitude and is about to fall from the sky.
Yet people clap and clap?
The pilot, after a long and honorable career too happens to retire mid-flight. The next pilot may or may not have experience flying an airplane. Passengers in economy seats would prefer to have a pilot who knows how to fly an airplane.
The board, sipping champagne in first class, may have a different idea of what qualifies someone to fly an airplane. (No, being a politician does not qualify someone to fly a plane).
I hope for the best for my alma mater but boy, am I worried.
I don’t want our university to top the rankings just because it fell behind in the clownish race to the bottom against other universities by making stupid decisions.
A quote attributed to Warren Buffett says, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about it, you will do things differently. I hope UF Trustees and especially our Board of Directors and State Legislators will take notice.
And I hope I’m wrong about all of this – it’s not too late to correct course. After all, there is still a bit to climb.
Zachariah Chou graduated from UF in 2020 with degrees in political science and journalism.
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