Peter Coclanis, one of the candidates for UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences dean position, withdrew his name from the search Tuesday night, citing UF's budget problems and administrative restructuring as his reasons.
In an e-mail forwarded to the Alligator by UF Provost Janie Fouke, Coclanis, associate provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote to the chairman of the dean search committee that UF's financial environment prompted him to withdraw.
UF President Bernie Machen announced Friday that budget operations currently handled by the provost's office and the UF controller's office will move to the office of the chief financial officer.
Coclanis called this move a "weakening of the provost's powers," which raises "fundamental governance issues."
An e-mail sent to him late Tuesday evening wasn't answered by press time.
He was scheduled to visit UF's campus Monday and is the second candidate to pull out of the search in the last week. David Featherman, director of the University of Michigan's Center for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society, withdrew Friday for personal reasons.
In a phone interview, the committee chairman, Pramod Khargonekar, said he was surprised by Coclanis' e-mail and hoped to change his mind.
"The probability is not great, but it is not zero either," Khargonekar said of persuading Coclanis to stay in the search. "There is a chance."
