P: The final [decision maker].

R: Yes, but that never happens.

P: It seems to me there were so many levels here.

R: But, you see, by and large, it all ends at the [local Board of Trustees of the
 individual] Community College office.

P: I can understand that. The local school board does not even have any say so.

R: Not anymore. All that phased out in 1970, when we really had the independent
 advisory board for community colleges set up and got a director of the community
 college system. Before that, this had been like an office under the commissioner of
 education.

P: So it is the local Boards [of Trustees] that really have the power.

R: That is the real power. Absolutely. They are the ones that can buy the land, they
 are the ones that pick the architects, they are the ones that approve the buildings,
 they are the ones that pick the president, they are the ones that do everything. The
 local Board of Trustees runs the college.

P: So it [the local Board of Trustees] has the same kind of authority over the individual
 college that the [state] Board of Control [now Board of Regents] has over the
 university system.

R: Yes. Maybe even more than that, because we do not have this business of the DOA
 [Department of Agriculture] and all those other state agencies [influencing decisions],
 because the universities are [also] state agencies. We [community colleges] are not
 [state] agencies.

P: That is interesting. I had never heard of that.

R: Oh, and it is a vital difference. You know, [at] the University of Florida, John
 Lombardi cannot promote his own secretary without sending it to Tallahassee. You
 guys do not get paid for travel for months on end because it all goes up there to be
 paid. None of that happens with community colleges.

P: See, I do not have any idea how much my secretary gets. I have no control over her.

R: That is right. I know, it is the strangest system.

P: Joe leaves when? When do you take over?

R: Joe [Fordyce] left in December of 1971. I became president in December of 1971.

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