News Article

FSW President Goes Back to Class

Apr 14, 2016

It’s 12:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and for one group of students, that means it’s time for their organic chemistry class located on the second floor of the newly renovated Leonhardt Hall. Today featured a guest instructor whose academic career began in the classroom. He earned his Doctorate in Chemistry from Middle Tennessee State University. His presentation gave the class extra information that would be useful for their experiment: the dehydration of Cyclohexanol.

The guest instructor: Dr. Jeff Allbritten, President of Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW). A year ago, President Allbritten said he wanted to stay connected to faculty and students, and one way to do that is to be a guest instructor in class.

“I miss being in the classroom,” he said. “Although I have to admit that the equipment our students now have to conduct experiments goes beyond what I had.”

The new second floor chemistry lab is part of the total renovation of Leonhardt Hall, which was built in 1966 on FSW’s Fort Myers campus. The second floor include four general purpose labs, three faculty research mini labs, one physics lab, one organic chemistry lab, one general classroom, six faculty offices and an office for adjunct faculty. The second phase of the project is under way and will include the complete renovation of the ground floor, which will have a dean’s suite, 11 faculty offices, three classrooms and an 88-seat lecture hall. The work is the result of state Public Education Capital Outlay (PECO) dollars. Leonhardt Hall is one building where nearly every FSW student will take a least one class.

Next for President Allbritten? Shaking the hands of over 1,000 graduates of FSW on May 6.

Last Updated: April 14, 2016