Malleable: when a person is capable of being altered or controlled by outside forces or influences.
Nostrum: a medicine, especially one that is not considered effective, prepared by an unqualified person.
No question, Santa J. Ono is a perfect fit for President of the University of Florida. Why, when he speaks you won’t even be able to see The Great DeSanitizer’s lips move.
Ono has turned malleablity into an art form.
First he was for DEI. Now he’s against it.
He was “student-centered.” Then he had those damned kids thrown off his lawn and arrested for being against genocide.
He was a sign-on-the-dotted-line defender of academic freedom. Until he realized that his signature on a suspect list of liberal university and college presidents might not be a good look in our anti-Ron’s Free State Of Floriduh.
In Florida, Ono “will find a governor who will appreciate his submissiveness,” Silke-Maria Weineck a UM professor of German and comparative literature wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
As if to add icing to the cake, before Ono was a career university president he was a “highly respected immunologist,” as per the Orlando Sentinel.
We can’t wait for his first sit down with Joseph Ladapo, Floriduh’s surgeon general and highly paid UF professor of medical mythology.
Their first collaboration? A major research initiative to disprove Edward Jenner’s so-called theory that vaccination with the cowpox virus can protect a person from smallpox without causing autism.
Talk about frontiers of science.
Meanwhile, on other fronts in The Great DeSanitizer’s war on public higher education:
A tactical retreat
University of West Florida President Martha Saunders has resigned. This on the heels of our anti-Ron’s charges that UWF has some of the “most liberal programs in the state,” and that Florida will not tolerate “indoctrination camps.”
Plus, he was shocked (shocked) to learn of student-organized drag shows on campus.
“Buckle up,” the DeSanitizer told UWF. Coming soon: A mandatory course for incoming UWF freshmen called “Fascism For Dummies.”
“Over the past several years, we’ve accomplished extraordinary things together,” Saunders said in a final finger to Floriduh, “record enrollments, historic fundraising, national recognition, and a campus culture that puts students first. We’ve met challenges head-on and kept our values intact. I could not be more proud of what we’ve built.”
Maybe she should consider the University of Michigan. I understand there’s a vacancy now.
And new arrivals
Now here’s a shocker: Jeanette Nunez, who for several years as Lt. Governor was Floriduh’s least known and most underemployed politician, has been named the new president of Florida International University.
And well earned. After all, she did manage to hold down the “interim” spot for three months without the lights going out.
Nunez’s value as a public servant has been amply demonstrated by the fact that The Guv still hasn’t named anyone to take her place as Governor-In-Waiting.
Maybe our anti-Ron’s plan is to appoint his wife Casey DeSantis – after which he will resign so she can get a leg up over Trump’s guy in next year’s gubernatorial race.
Longest one standing
Likewise state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner was selected in February to become president of Florida Atlantic University. Meanwhile, University of South Florida President Rhea Law has announced her departure.
With all these comings and goings, “University of Central Florida President Alexander Cartwright would be the longest-tenured president in the system. He was named UCF president in 2020,” reports the News Service of Florida.
Fuss and bother at FAMU
Oh yeah, and it looks like trouble is brewing in regard to the presidential search at Florida A&M.
The NAACP is expressing “dismay” and “serious concerns” over the search at Florida’s historically African-American university.
This in reference, The Gainesville Sun reports, to “presidential finalist Marva Johnson, Charter Communications’ Group Vice President of State Government Affairs, whose candidacy has caused pushback and even outrage from many in the FAMU community.
As per The Sun report: “The resistance to Johnson – a former Florida Board of Education chair also appointed to other boards by both former Gov. Rick Scott and current Gov. Ron DeSantis – comes amid broad speculation that her name was added late to the search committee’s original list of three finalists that panelists interviewed and voted on during closed sessions.”
All of which seems like a lot of fuss and bother over what has pretty much become FBU (Floriduh Business as Usual).
What’s the point of even having university and college presidents if you can’t hire your friends and purge your enemies?
FreeGNV 