On Friday, University of West Florida President Judy Bense told the Community Maritime Park Associates board that UWF will not build its Maritime Museum for three to five years because of a lack of funding.
We at The Voyager would like to commend her for this bold move. It’s never an easy decision to alter plans that have been so publicly made and debated, but we feel certain that President Bense made the right move.
The museum project has been in and out of the news for years now, and as recently as last month it was uncertain whether the University would completely pull out of the park because of a dispute over its location.
There was insufficient funding for construction then, and zero funding for the operation of the museum, but, in an article published Feb. 10, Bense told The Voyager, “This is a lesson to students in how to move a university forward and how to take advantage of an opportunity without having absolutely everything you need.”
It can’t have been easy to step back from that position, and back to reality, where the rest of us live. We’re glad she did.
If there’s a lasting lesson that can be learned from the financial crisis that has shaken the global economy, it’s that nothing good comes from trying to live outside one’s means, and Bense has apparently remembered that lesson.
The Maritime Museum will, eventually, be a great way for the UWF community to interface with its Pensacola-area neighbors, and the promised research center will doubtless be a valuable resource for our students.
But potentially borrowing from Professor Peter and Instructor Paul to pay for it would have been the wrong way to go.
Bense said in that same Feb. 10 article that the museum would have to be funded by all new money or it wouldn’t be built, and we’re thankful she stood by that statement. It seems likely that it would have been an easier choice to make on-campus budget cuts wider and deeper to fund a flagship project that would have raised UWF prestige off campus.
We thank President Bense for putting the University first in this matter. Critics may claim that she is backing out of a commitment, but we are glad she remembered that her first and foremost commitment is to the students, faculty and staff of the University of West Florida, and if we cannot afford to build a $20 million status symbol downtown, we should wait until we can.
—The Voyager
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