Florida colleges’ presidential searches would need more than one finalist, under new bill

Florida’s public colleges and universities would no longer be allowed to select their presidents in total secrecy, under proposed new legislation.

State Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, filed a bill this week that would require a college or university to select three to five finalists whose names would become public. Her bill is in response to a string of recent presidential searches that resulted in only one publicly named finalist, including former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse at the University of Florida.

“We would like to have more than one finalist so there’s some modicum of choice and public input for a public university president,” Polsky told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday. “If they only put forward one name, there’s no decision to be made. That means you won. The person got the job.”

The names of all applicants for college and university presidents were public until 2022, when the state Legislature made the search process more secretive. The reasoning was that many top candidates were reluctant to let their current employers know they were applying unless they felt they had a good chance of getting the job.

Under the 2022 law, the names and identifying information of all presidential applicants are exempt from public disclosure until they make it to the finalist stage. But the law doesn’t define how many finalists are required.

It’s unclear whether Polsky, a Democrat, will even get a hearing for the bill in the Republican-controlled Legislature. But Polsky said the bill shouldn’t be partisan. She said it’s correcting problems in the original legislation.

“This is not repealing the bill. It’s just asking for clarification, because nothing in the (2022) bill references that they had to come forward with more than one candidate,” she said.

Former State Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican, was a sponsor of the original bill, but he’s been critical of how it’s been implemented. He told News Service of Florida in July that the intent was never to have just one finalist.

“When we come down to how they’ve implemented it, they’ve completely perverted the intent of this law,” he told the news service.

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Alan Levine, a member of the State University System’s Board of Governors, told the Sun Sentinel he understands the intent of Polsky’s bill. But he said the proposed language may be too rigid.

“My sense is there probably should be some exception in the case where there are extenuating circumstances,” he said. “What if two of the three highly ranked finalists don’t want to move forward? And you are left with one exceptional candidate?”

Since the law passed, three college and university presidential searches have resulted in just one finalist being chosen, UF, Florida International University in Miami and South Florida State College at Avon Park.

The three original finalists at South Florida State College dropped out. In June, the college’s Board of Trustees then named former legislator Fred Hawkins, an ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis, as the sole finalist.

FIU said in September 2022 that Kenneth Jessell, who was then interim president, was the only finalist for the permanent job “due to an unwillingness by other individuals to continue their candidacy, unless they were the sole recommendation of the committee.”

UF’s October 2022 announcement of Ben Sasse, a Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska and the former president of a small private university in the state, as the sole finalist led to protests from students and faculty.

“Every single prospect the search committee interviewed requested complete confidentiality unless they were named as the sole finalist,” UF spokesman Steve Orlando told the Sun Sentinel in January. “These were leaders in exceptionally important positions across the academy, business and the public sector.

“While the desire for making the names of these individuals public is understandable, it was crucial that we follow their wishes so that they can continue leading their important work and we could attract the best candidates,” Orlando said at the time.

UF actually had three finalists at one time, but two dropped out, leaving Sasse as the only one, according to a recently released report by the State University System’s inspector general into Florida Atlantic University’s troubled presidential search.

Polsky’s bill would not address any of the issues that happened with the recent FAU search, which was terminated this month and must start over.

FAU publicly named three finalists in July, but the Board of Governors then suspended the search, alleging anomalies. The inspector general report, as well as an opinion from Attorney General Ashley Moody, said the method FAU used to narrow its pool of candidates failed to comply with state law.

Many Democrats, including Polsky, alleged FAU faced undue political pressure to hire State Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, as president. DeSantis’ office had publicly endorsed Fine, and Fine told the Sun Sentinel that DeSantis’ office had assured him he was a shoo-in. However, the search committee did not ultimately name Fine as a finalist.

The inspector general’s report concluded there was “insufficient evidence” that the university faced pressure from the state to select Fine.