Who "railroaded" the Florida Poly president vote, Mark Bostick? Tell us the story.

DeSantis' anti-woke grifter trustees all lined behind a 71-year-old "prophet" and spinner of platitudes. Why?

Back in September, before his selection as the new Florida Poly president, Northwest Florida State College President Devin Stephenson published a guest column in Peter Schorsch’s Florida Politics website.

I am fond of referring to Florida Politics as the “yearbook for the degenerate high school” that is Florida’s state government and its gross political class of hangers-on and consultants. Stephenson’s big piece announced to everybody he’s very much a cool kid in that fetid, incompetent world.

Had I cared enough to know this as the Poly search unfolded, I could have saved the handful of *serious* Florida Poly trustees some time and embarrassment.

Yes, I would have told them, you are gonna hire this 71-year-old to guide your floundering, 80 percent male, socialistically-funded, lowest state graduation rate university because some combination of the mean boys who dole out these highly paid sinecures want you to.

I suspect this is what serious-ish trustee Mark Bostick meant when he said the following, as quoted in The Ledger:

Before the vote, Bostick described the process as being “somewhat railroaded.” He suggested that hiring Stephenson would be “a disaster,” given his background, and warned that Florida Poly would become “a laughingstock.”

It would be amusing to know the precise mechanisms and people behind the railroading. Bostick must know — or at least have an inkling. If he or anybody else wants to dish the tea, I’m easy to find.

Devin Stephenson: prophet, architect, engineer, motivational speaker. LOL.

Check out the first three paragraphs of Stephenson’s Florida Politics piece. And then ask yourself, did a human write this? Or GenAI? I’m betting on GenAI. The third graph is particularly exquisite in a large language model sort of way:

Over the past few months, I have found myself immersed in reflection, contemplating the profound lessons that have emerged from the front lines of leadership in higher education after the pandemic.

The truth is, no preparation can entirely equip us for this unprecedented journey that we are on in higher education. While some may claim they had the foresight to be prepared for something as difficult as COVID-19, in my extensive career in higher education, the sheer weight and intricacy of these challenges stand unparalleled.

The current milieu has necessitated a leadership transformation, invoking prophetic insight, an engineer’s tactical prowess, an architect’s visionary foresight, and a motivational speaker’s charisma and dynamism. How can a person be all these things at once? This multifaceted leadership role is a weight shared by every institutional leader.

How can a person be all these things at once? It’s the burning prompt of our time.

Why did anti-woke grifter Ilya Shapiro and crew back the prophet?

Back in October, DeSantis appointed four anti-woke grifters to the Poly board of trustees, the most famous of which is Ilya Shapiro. It was mostly greeted with a yawn because Florida Poly has no student life or campus culture to try to wreck.

Indeed, it’s quite difficult to have a campus culture when only three out of 10 students actually graduates from the university in four years. Maybe if it wasn’t 80 percent male that might be different. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. But what do I know? I’m not a prophet.

In any event, all four of the anti-woke grifters backed Stephenson. There’s definitely a story behind that bloc that goes beyond whatever got said in the hiring meeting, according to published accounts.

Florida Poly refuses to post the meeting publicly, forcing citizens to make a formal public records request and pay costs, which I refuse to do. So I have to rely on the published accounts.

The closest thing to a reason the grifter bloc gave is Stephenson is “well-positioned” to get money out of the Legislature or something. Florida Poly has no endowment or private funding to speak of. It is, by far, the most socialist Florida university structurally, the least capable of standing on its own.

So, yeah, maybe begging the taxpayers for more right wing socialist cash is important. But Shapiro’s stated reason for backing the prophet was, by far, the funniest:

Ilya Shapiro, appointed last year as a trustee, also defended Stephenson. He recalled a comment he heard from a student during the candidate’s visit, describing Stephenson as “the first candidate who felt like our Randy.”

“Our Randy.” LOL. That’s a reference to Randy Avent, the outgoing president, who apparently is beloved by the three-out-of-10 students who stick around.

How state and local leaders can squander Polk’s moment with ineptitude and weakness

Let’s play a game. Assume for a moment that merit/vision actually meant something in this hire.

If so, it represents a hard turn back to the original purpose of the USF Lakeland campus — a general education campus to serve local kids and help them enter the workforce.

One can make a case that turning Florida Poly into a stealth state (community) college or high-ish tech welding center is a good thing. More Polk kids would probably benefit from that than whatever this Poly is today, which is a complete non-factor in the lives of most Polk County residents. Southeastern, with all its problems, has far more local impact.

But a stealth state (community) college is not what J.D. Alexander hijacked and bullied into existence all those years ago.

And just the total, grifting ineptitude of all of it — from the useless hiring of Kelli Stargel to the graduation rate to the girls-have-cooties enrollment to the presidential shit show — is emblematic of the Polk County leadership class’ ability to squander the benefits of Polk’s temporary status as the fastest growing county in America.

Because of cost and inland migration patterns — most of which are internal to Florida — Polk and Lakeland have a window (20 years, maybe) of growth and capital infusion that will be difficult to screw up.

But hand this to our leaders: they are giving it the old college try.