The Florida Board of Governors will have more say in presidential searches at the state’s public institutions, approving a new policy Wednesday that will require its chair to sign off on a list of finalists before the candidates are submitted to individual governing boards.
Institutional search committees will advance a list of finalists to the chair, who can then approve or remove candidates. The approved applicant pool will then be submitted to the institution’s Board of Trustees. The move comes as several presidential searches loom across the state—including at the University of Florida, where Ben Sasse stepped down in July.
Board of Governors chair Brian Lamb said at Wednesday’s meeting that not all recent searches have gone as planned, an apparent reference to the failed search at Florida Atlantic University, which was suspended over alleged anomalies in July 2023. Florida officials found that a straw poll that search committee members used to rank candidates anonymously in order to shrink the applicant pool violated the state’s Sunshine Law, but others alleged political interference was at play since the committee did not advance a Republican state lawmaker.
The Board of Governors passed the new policy despite concerns from some trustees.
“It seems like the Board of Trustees is not being trusted to make decisions,” Peter Collins, chair of the Florida State University Board, told governors as they deliberated on the vote.
Florida International University Board of Trustees chair Rogelio Tovar struck a similar stance and added that the policy it could make it harder to find individuals to serve on presidential search committees.
