Florida heads to Canada; Who will head ULL?

"Creative Class" author and economist Richard Florida is doing a reverse snow bird and heading north to the University of Toronto's up-and-coming Rotman School of Management.

The Washington Post story on Florida's decision to leave George Mason University in Virgninia provides this information:

Florida, who joined GMU in 2004, has theorized that smart, innovative thinkers -- such as engineers, writers, entertainers and artists -- are crucial to the success of U.S. cities. He expounded those theories in two top-selling books: "The Rise of the Creative Class," published in 2002, and "The Flight of the Creative Class," published in 2005.

His departure comes just a few months after GMU featured him in a Business Week advertisement touting the Washington region's blend of cultural, sports, academic and service amenities as being a magnet for the best and brightest young people.

At Rotman, Florida will be a professor of business economics and academic director of the school's newly established Centre for Jurisdictional Advantage and Prosperity, a $120 million project to study how localities make themselves more attractive to companies and top-flight talent.

So, Florida, who spoke in Lafayette a couple of years ago as part of The Independent/IberiaBank speaker series, will still be looking at issues that have significance for those of us in Lafayette who are committed to driving change and growth using technology and innovation.

One possibility that has opened up with the announced retirement of ULL President Ray Authement is that the new president (whoever he or she may be) will have the opportunity to energize faculty recruitment (hell, energizing anything on campus would be an improvement).

The horse farm fiasco is not what tarnished Authement's legacy at the university. That episode was symptomatic of the larger problem which was the loss of his ability to distinguish the interests of the university from his own interests and those of his circle of friends.

After 30-plus years of the same management, my hope is that the next president of ULL will be someone young and out to make a name for themselves (much like Authement was when he first took the post). Rather than looking to build an empire here, the university would really be best served if the next president is some energetic person who comes here looking to shake the place up; someone seeking create some a buzz about the university that matches the growing buzz about Lafayette in business and technology circles around the country, and then used their good work here to move on to something else.

There's some serious plaque in the academic and operational arteries of ULL. What this university needs is the anti-Authement: someone with no ties to the status quo and with an eye to letting their great work here serve as a spring board to something bigger and better down the road.

ULL won't thrive if the job of president comes to be viewed as the last stop before retirement for someone who made their reputation back in the day. And, if ULL doesn't thrive, it will be a brake on Lafayette and the region at a time when our community needs ULL to be contributing to the forward thrust.