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Education

Miami Dade College's New Presidential Search Committee Slated To Begin Work Next Week

Al Diaz
/
Miami Herald
Miami Dade College board chair Bernie Navarro and other members discuss the presidential search during a meeting in July.

Miami Dade College’s reassembled presidential search committee will hold its first meeting next week, with plans to begin reviewing applications for Eduardo Padrón’s successor in late March.

The committee is moving forward with a vaguer picture of what the next president will look like. A presidential profile approved by the college’s board of trustees states a terminal degree — the highest academic credential available in one’s field — is preferred.

The original search committee had required a doctorate and at least six years experience in higher education administration, a job description that yielded a traditional field of candidates. The first search was scrapped over the summer after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a new majority on the board. Trustees indicated one finalist from the first search was still in the running: current provost Lenore Rodicio.

Some DeSantis appointees have argued the looser requirements are preferable, because they might attract a business executive or other nontraditional but otherwise excellent candidate.

“If there is a C.E.O. of General Electric, of Tesla, that has this dream of — they want to move their career to this opportunity in education and change the world, we’re restricting them,” board member Michael Bileca, a former Republican lawmaker, said of the original job requirements during a meeting last May.

Bileca is on the search committee. The panel is being chaired by board member Nicole Washington, an education policy consultant who has served in a variety of public roles, including on Florida A&M University’s board of trustees and the state’s 2018 Constitution Revision Commission.

See the timeline for the new search here:

Here’s the presidential profile:

Here’s the list of search committee members:

Jessica Bakeman is Director of Enterprise Journalism at WLRN News, and she is the former senior news editor and education reporter. Her 2021 project "Class of COVID-19" won a national Edward R. Murrow Award.
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