{"id":248867,"date":"2026-04-27T23:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248867\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T23:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:00:08","slug":"usf-leadership-highlights-st-petersburg-campus-achievements-at-first-campus-board-meeting-of-the-year-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248867\/","title":{"rendered":"USF leadership highlights St. Petersburg campus achievements at\u00a0first\u00a0campus board meeting of the year \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The campus\u00a0board meets several times a year to discuss and approve budget requests, as well as improvement plans for the campus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Julia Ferrara\u00a0<\/p>\n

On April 13, the St. Petersburg campus board met and welcomed two new members, Interim Regional Chancellor, Thomas Smith, Senior Vice President and Market Director for the Bank of Tampa, Barclay\u00a0Harless\u00a0and hosted USF President Moez\u00a0Limayem\u00a0for the first time\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also recognized several board members whose appointments have\u00a0concluded, namely Scott Moyer and Lisa Brody.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Members of the board\u00a0 include Andrea Gonzmart Williams, the owner of the Columbia Restaurant Group, Isaac McKinney III, a network information security global project manager for Internet First Borderless technologies, Melissa Seixas, the Florida state president for Duke Energy, Debbie Nye Sembler, a former USF Board of Trustees Member\u00a0and Debbie White, a Chairman of the Board of Directors at Ruth Eckerd Hall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several times throughout the year, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg Campus Board meets to\u00a0submit\u00a0and approve an annual operating plan, budget, and legislative budget request to the USF Board of Trustees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The board consists of seven community leaders who each serve four-year terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two-hour meeting went through university and St. Peterburg campus updates, an alumni spotlight, a faculty spotlight, the Ocean\u00a0Race\u00a0and a budget update.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Limayem\u00a0shared some of USF\u2019s recent accomplishments such as having a\u00a0$10 billion\u00a0economic impact,\u00a0$7 billion\u00a0of which\u00a0is within the Tampa Bay Areas, and supporting over 110,000 jobs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that 42 of the university\u2019s graduate programs rank in the top 100 and 18 rank in the top 50.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He continued by sharing his vision for the future of the college, saying that he imagines a complete reset.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will emphasize critical thinking, also problem solving and professional skills, where experiential learning, internships, will be the rule of the game, rather than the exception,\u201d\u00a0Limayem\u00a0said. \u201cWe will ensure that the experience of our students, our faculty and staff is the best it could be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith, shared campus-specific\u00a0achievements.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

USF St. Petersburg received over 6,000 applications for the upcoming fall semester, according to Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also mentioned the ongoing project, Preventing Alzheimer\u2019s with Cognitive Training (PACT), led by professor of psychology Jennifer O\u2019Brien.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0the largest study of\u00a0its\u00a0kind. Jennifer recently took over as the PI, the principal investigator on that project,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey\u2019ve seen a total of about 8,000 participants, more than $50 million in federal funding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He continued by adding that the Kate Tiedemann School of Business and Finance recently launched a financial literacy clinic to provide financial education to students, high school teachers, and the community at large.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He touted the St. Petersburg Science Fest, which saw about 10,000 attendees, and was done in collaboration with the Innovation District, the College of Marine Science and other community partners.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith also shared that the school is working on a collaborative project with the College of Marine Science, the College of Arts and Sciences\u00a0and the College of Design,\u00a0Art\u00a0and Performance to create the Environmental and Oceanographic Sciences building.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time to be on campus, and we feel like\u2026it is really a time of onward and upward, and really great things happening here,\u201d Smith said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following\u00a0Smith, USF\u00a0St. Petersburg student government governor Elise Prophete, highlighted some of the student programming happening on campus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She shouted out the Health Education Action Team (HEAT), the Multicultural Programming Board (MPB), and Student Government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve provided some great programming for students with the Wellness Center, so a lot of the things that they do is just raise awareness about the resources that we have on campus, making sure that we\u2019re taking care of ourselves [and] making sure we\u2019re taking care of others,\u201d Prophete said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI also want to say that our Multicultural Programming Board is making great programs with the What\u2019s the Tea events, where they do small, lecture-style, student-led events,\u201d Prophete said. \u201cAnd from that, I think a lot of students have been truly empowered along the way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The board then opened the floor to any questions from attendees. Inquiries were raised about new major options, the Ocean Race, and future exposure for the campus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following this segment, was the budget update, led by Masha\u00a0Galchenko, the Associate Vice President for\u00a0Budget\u00a0and Financial Analysis.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She shared that overall, revenues were slightly ahead of schedule through\u00a0the month of December, and expenses were a bit behind, which is a positive status.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next campus board meeting has yet to be announced, but are open to all USF faculty, staff, and students, and\u00a0are located in\u00a0the USC Ballroom 3.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 60 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Written by: Julia Ferrara<\/a> on April 27, 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The campus\u00a0board meets several times a year to discuss and approve budget requests, as well as improvement plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-248867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}