was fairly small, and so they lost the argument. And we were then able to take
over the demonstration school.
The timeline on this was pretty critical. It was necessary for us to build a new
school, and in order to meet our schedule, we had to build a new school out
in SouthWood. From the time we signed the contract until it was built was 11
months – design the building, contract for the building, build the building, have
people move in: 11 months, which is a fairly rapid timeline. We had great difficulty
because the people we were negotiating with out in SouthWood were very
hardheaded businesspeople, and they didn’t think they should do things the way
we wanted them done, the way we HAD to have them done. But ultimately we
said, “If you can’t do it in 11 months, we’ll find us another location.” They were
giving us free land, but we said, “We won’t build it there. We’ll go someplace else
and build it.” So they folded and agreed to have it built in 11 months. So we did
that.
The medical school [at first] had these most elegant facilities. I hope you get
a chance to see them sometime. I’m not sure where they’re located. They’re trailers!...
Offices, after a fashion. Most of all, it had people who were dedicated to
seeing that this medical school would get built. So we operated from these trailers
that were located right beside the nursing school.
Then after we moved the Florida High educational program out, we had
empty buildings there. And as we began to tear down the old school, and build
the buildings that you have here, we then headquartered the medical school basically
next to a major construction site, [with] heavy equipment working just a
few feet away from where you’re trying to conduct classes or run your office business.
You think about the people who pioneered here, what they went through at
every stage of this procedure: They’re in trailers, then they get moved into temporary
quarters where there’s a construction site next door, and finally they get
rewarded by finally moving into this magnificent building.
But the process of that construction, as complicated as it was, was not as complicated
as accreditation.… After we had done the yearlong study, we then went
back to the Legislature. John Thrasher at this point is speaker of the House….
John never got scared. What I learned later was, after you’ve been on a medical
evacuation team, nothing is going to ever scare you again. John was quite wonderful.
Steve MacNamara, who was his chief of staff, had been an assistant dean
for me when I was dean of the law school, and a wonderful guy. A Republican,
but really an awful nice guy. Having Steve there to help with the communications
was really invaluable to us, because we had access to the speaker and the
speaker’s office. John Thrasher was going to help us anyhow, but having Steve
MacNamara there turned out to be just really very important to the establishment
of this school….
So we finally had done the study, were moving with the building, and before
we moved into the new building, we now have a fight about accreditation. If
you understand medical accreditation, and I know now more than I want to
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