FSU president search heats up
Florida State University's search for a new president will go from lukewarm to sizzling starting today, Tuesday, the deadline for submitting applications.
Alberto Pimentel, the head hunter helping FSU complete its search, said he knows a number of individuals who have been waiting until Tuesday afternoon to send in their applications, to limit their exposure as a result of Florida's public records laws.
FSU interim President Garnett Stokes is among those expected to apply during the final hours of the process.
To date, 24 men and women have applied, most notably state Sen. John Thrasher, who is also running for re-election to his St. Augustine seat in the Legislature. Florida Supreme Court Justice Ricky Polston and state Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda also are candidates; all three submitted their applications in late May.
Pimentel, based in the Los Angeles area, said he probably will wait until Wednesday morning to do a mass posting on FSU's website of all the candidates who applied on Tuesday.
The presidential search advisory committee is scheduled to meet Friday to whittle the list of applicants to about six, all of whom will be interviewed on campus next week. The search committee hopes to recommend at least three finalists to the board of trustees on Sept. 22. The trustees have scheduled a Sept. 23 meeting, with the goal to hire a new president.
"I think this schedule is doable," Allan Bense, chair of FSU's board, said. "We walk a tightrope. Only the really good applicants wait until the last minute and they want it to go quickly. At the same time, we want to be deliberate and thorough."
FSU did not begin the year expecting to be on the market for a new CEO. Eric Barron, on the job four years, was widely respected and admired by virtually all FSU stakeholders and leaders of the Tallahassee community.
But Barron was persuaded to be a candidate for the president's job at Penn State, where he had been on the faculty for 20 years, and he was hired by that university on Feb. 17.
Stokes, FSU's provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, has served as interim president since Barron's departure.
The search comes at a critical time for FSU. Two years ago it earned preeminent status, along with University of Florida, thanks to lawmakers' efforts to increase the national reputation of the state's top public universities. The preeminent designation has provided FSU and UF each with an additional $35 million to date, money that has been used to hire much-needed faculty and make other investments.
FSU, currently ranked No. 40 among the nation's public schools, has established a plan to move into the top 25, provided the preeminence funding continues.
FSU's search has been mired in controversy almost from the moment it began. Thrasher, an ardent FSU supporter — the university's medical school bears his name — made it clear he wanted to be FSU's next president. Numerous professors and students at FSU have opposed a Thrasher presidency from the outset, noting that the conservative Republican is not from academia and does not know how a university operates.
But FSU's 27-member search committee, made up of just four faculty members and three students, is teeming with men and women connected to Thrasher to varying degrees.
Ned Stuckey-French, an English professor at FSU, went so far as to tell the search committee it had allowed Thrasher "to hijack" the process of selecting the university's next president. Stuckey-French said he hopes Stokes does apply for the job she's held for the past five months.
"I think we're all waiting to see if Garnett will apply. I hope she does," he said. "She's a person with the kind of credentials faculty respect. Faculty here respect her already."