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FIU prepares to ramp up presidential search process

Hector Gabino / Miami Herald
/
Miami Herald

Florida International University officials are preparing to ramp up the search for the school’s next president. On April 5, FIU’s Board of Trustees is slated to appoint a search committee of students, faculty, alumni and community members to oversee the process. The board has already hired an outside search firm to help coordinate.

FIU Board of Trustees Chair Dean Colson gave an update on the search to the state Board of Governors Wednesday.

“The search will be chaired by our Vice Chair Roger Tovar. And we intend to have — kick off our town hall meetings and an additional search committee meeting on April 13th,” Colson said. “That’s our plan. We’re ready to go.”

According to board documents, it’s up to the search committee, working with the search firm, to develop recommended job criteria, identify potential candidates, vet and interview them and ultimately recommend a list of applicants.

The Board of Trustees will then select the finalists, invite them for on-campus interviews, and choose their candidate. Whoever the board selects must be confirmed by the state Board of Governors.

The Board of Trustees has picked consulting firm R. William Funk & Associates to help with the process. The group has conducted more than 430 searches for university presidents and chancellors, including at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech and the University of Virginia, as well as the University of Florida and the University of Miami, according to materials the firm provided the board.

The agency was hired by Florida State University to help find its next president in 2014, but R. William Funk resigned after the school’s Faculty Senate declared it had “no confidence” in the search process. The vote came after he recommended the committee pause the search to interview then-Sen. John Thrasher, a powerful former Speaker of the Florida House.

A well-connected politician with no experience in educational leadership, Thrasher’s appointment by the Board of Trustees outraged students and faculty members.

The public will have considerably less access to the deliberations for FIU’s search process, much of which will be kept secret, under a new law that Gov. Ron DeSantis approved earlier this month.

Under the new public records exemption, identifying information about the job applicants will be confidential until finalists are selected, at which point candidates’ names and other demographic information can be released.

According to the policy, meetings in the earlier stages of the process when the search committee will identify applicants and discuss their qualifications will be closed to the public.

FIU is on the hunt for a new leader after former president Mark Rosenberg resigned, following accusations by a female employee that he harassed her for months.

Kenneth Jessel is serving as the school’s interim president. He previously was FIU’s Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer.

Kate Payne is WLRN's Education Reporter. Reach her at kpayne@wlrnnews.org
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