sentences:  Sledd required all previous faculty members to re-apply if they desired to keep their jobs, hired replacement instructors, most of whom had earned doctoral degrees in their respective fields (in contrast to the previous faculty), and set about devising rigorous academic standards for the school's new students.Although the university was a designated land-grant college under the federal government's Morrill Act, it received insufficient annual financial assistance from the state government, and its finances remained tenuous.Sledd and members of the faculty were actively involved in urging Florida's state government to combine the state's several small institutions of higher education.