UF officially began its search for a new president, a process expected to stretch over several months and involve intense scrutiny from stakeholders.
At its inaugural meeting on Wednesday, the 15-member committee tasked with finding the next leader of the state’s flagship institution outlined a tentative timeline for the search, began crafting the president’s compensation package and heeded warnings of potential setbacks from the newly hired search firm.
The next president will step into the role during a time of strict oversight from the UF Board of Trustees, which recently increased its supervision of hiring and spending out of the president’s office following concerns from state lawmakers over outsized spending under Ben Sasse. Sasse, who unexpectedly resigned as president in July, served as UF’s 13th president for less than two years.
Rahul Patel, an Atlanta-based corporate lawyer and the vice chair of the UF Board of Trustees, is leading the committee steering the search. Its other members include John Brinkman, UF’s student body president; Shakira Henderson, dean of the College of Nursing; Sarah Lynne, chair of the Faculty Senate; Jon Pritchett, chair of the UF Foundation Executive Board; and Timothy Cerio and Charles Lydecker, members of the state university system’s Board of Governors.
The search for UF’s next president will be defined by three characteristics: “shared governance and inclusiveness,” “transparency” and a commitment to being “thorough,” said Patel, who also chaired the last presidential search committee. “If done properly, a presidential search is not just a search, but also a pivotal moment in an institution's evolution.”’
Timeline of interviews
The committee didn’t set a firm deadline for naming the next president, but Patel outlined a rough, “straw man” timeline for the search.
Candidate interviews are slated for the end of March, though Patel cautioned that the pace of the search depends on factors like the quality of the candidate pool and competitive forces in the marketplace.
“The process will go from there again,” Patel said. The last presidential search took six months to identify a finalist.
The next president’s salary hasn’t been determined
UF’s president has historically ranked among the highest paid public university leaders in the nation, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Sasse’s presidential contract included a $1 million salary, an annual performance bonus of up to $150,000 and a five-year retainer of $1 million.
A subcommittee of the search team, likely to be led by Patrick Zalupski — a real estate developer and UF trustee — is crafting the compensation package. Mercer, a consulting firm used in the previous search, has already begun conducting a market survey to help set the new president’s salary, Patel said.
Faculty and student input
The search committee will begin holding listening sessions with the UF community and other stakeholders in January to help set criteria for the next president. It is “one of the most important parts of the search,” Patel said.
A draft schedule of listening sessions includes meetings with the Faculty Senate, undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni. Two open sessions were also on the list, and input from local and statewide businesses will also be sought, Patel said.
The last presidential search committee also solicited community feedback, but it's unclear how much it influenced the final selection. The qualifications used to hire Sasse included a “passion for students,” a “belief in the power of education to change lives” and a “track record serving as a relationship builder who is authentic, ethical and humble.”
Sarah Lynne, the chair of the Faculty Senate, told the search committee on Wednesday that professors have already made efforts to get the ball rolling on input. The Faculty Senate passed a symbolic resolution last month outlining its desired qualifications for the next president, like successful fundraising experience and a promise to include faculty, staff and students in policy- and decision-making.
Faculty senators passed a similar resolution before the last presidential search, which included additional qualifications like administrative experience at a major research institution and support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Sasse’s administrative experience was limited to a five-year presidency at Midland University, a small liberal arts college in Nebraska which enrolls less than 2,000 students annually. Under Sasse, UF eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion programs to comply with new state laws.
Finalists will be selected in secret
Under a relatively new state law, some of the search’s key deliberations will take place behind closed doors. The law keeps the names of applicants for university presidencies confidential until the search committee narrows the field to three finalists. After that, the public has 21 days to weigh in.
The law — put in place weeks before UF began its last presidential search — is meant to attract high-caliber applicants who don’t want to jeopardize their jobs. But when UF’s search committee named Sasse as the sole finalist it “undermined the trust and confidence” of faculty senators, who said that stakeholders should be able to consider multiple candidates for the university’s top job.
At the kickoff meeting on Wednesday, interim General Counsel Ryan Fuller said the current search committee must issue public notices of meetings, allow open attendance and publish minutes. The committee’s discussions of specific applicants, however, will take place during special “executive sessions” which are closed to the public.
Delays, competing searches
The UF Board of Trustees voted last week to retain SP&A Executive Search — the California-based firm that helped select Sasse — to work alongside the committee. The firm has recently placed presidents at the University of Central Florida, University of South Florida and Florida State University.
Alberto Pimentel, a managing partner and co-founder of SP&A, will once again serve as the lead consultant. At Wednesday’s meeting, Pimentel warned that the volume of ongoing university presidential searches nationwide is “astronomical,” unprecedented and could result in delays.
“Folks are just burned out with searches,” he said. “Our initial outreach to individuals is going to result in folks saying thank you, but no, thank you.”
Pimentel also pointed to another potential obstacle: competing institutions offering lucrative compensation packages — what he referred to as “golden handcuffs” — to poach top candidates.
The confidentiality afforded by state law may offer UF an advantage in attracting candidates, Pimentel added, but applicants will still be guarded in the early stages of recruitment.
During the meeting, Patel said that Pimentel is also in the “latter innings” of working on the University of Washington’s presidential search, which is slated to be complete by the end of next spring, according to the university’s website. In UF’s previous search, Pimentel said he would work exclusively with the university for the duration of its contract.
Garrett Shanley is a fourth-year journalism major and the Spring 2025 university editor for The Alligator. Email him at gshanley@alligator.org and follow him on X @garrettshanley.
Garrett Shanley is a fourth-year journalism major and the Summer 2024 university editor for The Alligator. Outside of the newsroom, you can find him watching Wong Kar-Wai movies and talking to his house plants.
