Dear USF community,
As part of our commitment to be transparent and to keep the community informed throughout the process, I’m writing today to share that I have received a set of recommendations from the North Fletcher Property Advisory Committee. As a reminder, when the committee of faculty, students and staff was formed in October 2021, it was charged with reviewing a recently completed and providing recommendations for each of the four distinct sections within the 700-plus-acre property. The committee also created a set of guiding principles for the university to consider in future planning and development discussions. I invite you to read those documents .
In the coming weeks, I will review the committee’s materials in more detail. Prior to serving as president, I spent many years as an environment and land use attorney. I will apply that experience, combined with the committee’s report, to carefully assess our next steps for each portion of the property.
However, one thing is immediately clear from the committee’s recommendations and in my ongoing conversations with our university stakeholders: We will not be pursuing any of the responses to the original Request for Information (RFI) posted in April 2021 and we have ended the RFI process.
I wish to thank the members of the committee, including Dean Tom Frazer of the College of Marine Science who served as chair, for their work over the past several months on an important issue for our university. Each of them brought a unique perspective to the process, and it was important that they came together to develop a single set of recommendations.
We will continue to provide you with updates as we decide our path forward.
Sincerely,
Rhea F. Law
President