LESLIE WILLIAMS HALE

Vanderbilt Beach Park is scheduled for a $1.2 million restroom makeover, expected to begin next year and be completed the following year. But until then, beach-goers will have to keep muddling through with the cramped restrooms at the park’s entrance, ...

Fired FGCU forensics assistant professor David Lounsbury should be reinstated, a Lee circuit judge has ruled. The judge confirmed an arbitrator's May 2010 decision stating that Lounsbury should be reinstated and given back pay by Florida Gulf Coast University

An instructor fired by Florida Gulf Coast University two years ago will have to keep waiting to hear what a Lee County judge has to say about his fate.

The station is avoiding layoffs and making only slight changes to programming, in some cases scaling back the frequency of certain locally-produced recurring segments and in others reducing travel and training costs.

Trustees meanwhile gave the go-ahead for the college to increase wages for salaried, non-teaching staff members by 4 percent and hourly staff members by 5 percent.

Though kept in the shade by state laws, evaluations for Edison State College President Kenneth Walker were released into the sunshine Friday morning.

A 15 percent tuition increase is all but signed, stamped and on its way to Florida’s public university students. Florida’s Board of Governers on Thursday voted for additional increases that will raise tuition the full 15 percent allowed by law ...

What seems to be defining FGCU is that, with one exception, it is the only university in the state system where trustees did not unanimously pass an additional 7 percent tuition increase on top of the 8 percent required by ...

Florida Gulf Coast University President Wilson Bradshaw has received top marks for another year. As a result of the glowing evaluation from the 11 members of his board gathered Tuesday, Bradshaw is entitled to a 5 percent raise and a ...

In a duo of Southwest Florida stops Wednesday, Gov. Rick Scott addressed representatives from what he called Florida’s two most recognizable industries: tourism and citrus.

Edison State College officials gathered Monday to announce the findings of a preliminary evaluation from the body overseeing the school's accreditation, and delivered a largely positive review.

In Naples this week, college financial aid advisors and directors from all over the state have gathered for an annual conference. Though it takes place every year, a perfect storm of changes — both planned and environmental — are giving ...

From health-care to education to the environment, Scott cut nearly $20 million in funding for projects that would have directly benefited Collier and Lee counties. Those cuts disappointed local lawmakers, who spent months crafting the state’s $70 billion budget.

Identified as "special interest earmarks," more than $17 million in construction funds to Southwest Florida's higher education institutions fell victim to the governor's veto pen today.

Administrators told the trustees that with health-care workers making up 25 percent of Southwest Florida’s workforce, health sciences represent the next logical step in Edison’s growth.

He might have passed away May 6, but William Merwin was very much present at a memorial service held at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Alico Arena on Monday. Current administrators, former trustees and Merwin’s own sons paid tribute to the ...

Florida Gulf Coast University officials will celebrate the life of former President Bill Merwin on Monday.

A Lehigh Acres man was arrested Tuesday, charged with making false bomb threats against Southwest Florida International Airport while he was sitting in the terminal waiting on a delayed flight.

At Edison State College, questions hang over how the Board of Trustees has conducted workshops, potentially in violation of the state’s Sunshine Law.

When two teenage boys went into distress in the water just off Bonita Beach on Sunday, a host of beach-goers sprang into action, helping pull the boys to shore, administering aid to one, and making sure he got quick medical ...

After two months on the job, the man hired to usher Ave Maria University into a new era has taken on his role as change agent. University President Jim Towey sent a letter to the university community on Friday announcing ...

Another top Edison State College administrator is on the way out.

Today, the college released the severance agreement with James Browder that guarantees an agreed-upon $175,000 payment to buy out the remaining two years of his contract.

Florida political experts said on Monday that bin Laden’s death would serve as a coup for Obama, but that any upward impact on Obama’s poll numbers could be short-lived with pressing domestic issues looming large in Americans’ minds.

Former CIA Director Porter Goss said on Monday from his Sanibel home that Osama bin Laden’s capture and killing was the culmination of work that began even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks rocked the nation.

Another employment dispute at Florida Gulf Coast University is headed for trial.

Florida Gulf Coast University is looking inward. After a failed search to replace its founding business school dean, FGCU has named one of its own to the position.

James Browder is out and will get a $175,000 compensation package. He could have sought more than $600,000 if he wanted his three-year contract to be honored.

If there were any hopes of the storm at Edison State College subsiding soon, they were dashed Thursday. The college released a statement to the media Thursday with details of a proposed pay cut to be taken by college President ...

James Browder may return to his original post — the one he was hired to fill in September — and his original salary, pending a Tuesday discussion and possible later action by the Edison Board of Trustees.

FGCU has coped with funding decreases for the past three years, instituting hiring freezes, keeping pay relatively flat and increasing tuition, but staving off layoffs. Staff and faculty went two years without pay raises, until January when pay was increased ...

Question: What's the difference between a state-supported and state-assisted institution? Answer: Somewhere between $3.3 million and $6 million.

Local football fans are going to have to put dreams of a hometown Division I college team on hold. Florida Gulf Coast University President Wilson Bradshaw told his Board of Trustees on Tuesday that adding football to FGCU athletics would ...

From Monday’s meeting came a set of decisions and recommendations the Senate plans to pass along to the Board of Trustees, including that the college hire an independent third-party auditor to look into a number of concerns raised by faculty. ...

Edison State College President Kenneth Walker and Senior Vice President James Browder agreed to take pay cuts today during a Board of Trustee meeting Wednesday.

A majority of Edison State College faculty voted in favor of a motion of no confidence in both President Kenneth Walker and administrator James Browder.

As members of Edison State College's faculty senate meet today to prepare for an upcoming session of the school's board of trustees, frustrations continue to simmer.

Edison State College's Board of Trustees will hold a specially convened meeting next week to discuss the recent firestorm of criticism at the college.

The 24.5-acre purchase, if approved by the FGCU Board of Trustees at its April 19 meeting, will join several other acquisitions by the university within the past year.

he vice chairman of Edison’s Board of Trustees said Wednesday that he has resigned his appointment to the board, where he served since 2006. With that, David Klein’s name is added to a growing list of defections and ousters in ...

Edison State College will reassign Senior Vice President James Browder, moving him off the Lee County campus and encouraging him to seek another job, under a concession offered by administrators and accepted by faculty on Monday

If Edison State College faculty and administration were united on anything Thursday night -- and there were few commonalities to be found -- it was pain over the state of their college

Top administrators at Edison State College will meet with faculty members Thursday to address concerns raised this week over frequent administration turnover and reports of high administrative salaries.

A new dean has been hired at Florida Gulf Coast University’s College of Health Professions.

Amid a flurry of upper-level administration changes, recent Edison State College recruit James Browder has moved closer to the top of the heap.

Ave Maria University's planned handover of its CEO responsibilities from founder Tom Monaghan to Jim Towey is coming sooner than originally planned.

A 19-year-old student at Florida Gulf Coast University died on Sunday in a Sarasota car crash that claimed the lives of three other teens.

Clinton proceeded to lay before the crowd a series of questions he said were essential to answer before making a decision about any topic of politics or policy, including, “What is the fundamental nature of the 21st Century world?” The ...

For the 2011 legislative session, state Sen. Greg Evers, R-Crestview, filed a wide-ranging bill that would loosen many of the state’s restrictions on when, where and how people can carry guns, including allowing firearms on college and university campuses. The ...

Highlights include a $2.7 million sale of a Norman Rockwell painting and a $1.4 million sale of a 1889 Jean-Leon Gerome painting.