Seymour set to lead UCF until ’20
Trustees also approve $600K settlement with former President Dale Whittaker
UCF trustees on Thursday said they’re happy with the leadership provided by Thad Seymour in a time of crisis and want him to stay longer than expected as they officially parted ways with ex-President Dale Whittaker by signing off on a six-figure settlement.
Trustees initially said Seymour, who has been the interim leader since Whittaker resigned Feb. 21 amid a controversy over misspent money, would be in the post for just a few months. But they decided he should remain in the role until June or July 2020, when they expect a new president to be in place.
“I’m truly humbled by this trust you’ve placed in me,” Seymour, who has led plans to open a new campus in downtown Orlando this summer, said after trustees voted unanimously to keep him in the interim role. “I’ve had many challenging leadership experiences in my career but I can say nothing really prepares one for something like this and it certainly doesn’t prepare you for being president of UCF, even on the interim basis.”
In addition, University of Central Florida trustees approved a settlement with Whittaker valued at $600,000, which James Finkelstein, an expert in university president compensation, called a “generous golden parachute” for someone who had been president less than eight months.
The 63-year-old Seymour, who previously served as the university’s vice president for partnerships and chief innovation officer, reiterated this week he won’t pursue the presidency on a permanent basis. Trustees plan to start a national search for their next president in the fall and select him or her in early 2020.
Seymour’s appointment for the
longer-term interim stint is subject to approval by the Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system. The board is slated to take up the matter at its March 28 meeting.
Thursday’s decisions came in the wake of a Florida House investigation over the university’s use of operating dollars for construction that found Whittaker had a responsibility to learn about the legal constraints on those funds during the four years he was provost at UCF, prior to becoming president, but failed to do so.
Whittaker’s predecessor, John Hitt, was closely involved in the decision to use state money for the wrong purposes, the investigation found.
Before Seymour was hired at UCF in 2015, he led planning, marketing and business development for Lake Nona’s Medical City as the senior vice president for the Tavistock Development Co. Since taking the reins at UCF a month ago, he’s helped restore lawmakers’ trust in the university, Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Garvy said.
“His deep relationships in the community and across the state made him a perfect choice for interim president,” Garvy said.
Keeping Seymour in that role for another year or so will allow trustees to focus on their search for a new permanent president, Garvy said. As interim president, Seymour will receive a significant raise — his annual salary will grow from $300,000 to $506,000, the same rate of pay spelled out in Whittaker’s contract.
That number seems high, said Finkelstein, professor emeritus at George Mason University. “Usually, when someone goes into these positions on an acting basis, they do not get the same salary as their immediate predecessor,” said Finkelstein, who studies university president compensation. “By doing so, the Board all but guarantees that the next permanent president will receive a substantially higher salary.”
As trustees discussed the $600,000 payout for Whittaker, they alluded to potential litigation from their former president over the terms of his departure. Avoiding court is “clearly advantageous” for the university, Garvy told his colleagues.
But he told reporters after the meeting Whittaker hadn’t threatened a lawsuit. The agreement they approved Thursday says Whittaker and the university can’t sue each other.
Whittaker’s payout will come from the UCF Foundation. UCF is also responsible for paying for Whittaker’s legal defense if any employees who were terminated while he was president sue him.
General Counsel Scott Cole told trustees that if they decided not to approve the settlement, “the only option” would be to terminate Whittaker without cause, which would allow him to return to the campus as a faculty member.
According to Whittaker’s contract, if he resigned from the university’s top post, he could remain on campus as a faculty member while earning 85 percent of his president’s salary.
“I believe that part of the calculation on the settlement was that that would not be consistent with the desire of the university to move forward,” Cole said.
If Whittaker, 57, worked another decade as a faculty member at UCF, the $600,000 payout would be a saving to the university, trustees reasoned. And agreeing to part ways with Whittaker amicably should allow the university to move on, Garvy said. “Should our board not approve this agreement with Dr. Whittaker, it will be nearly impossible to attract a world-class leader as our next president.”
Finkelstein, however, questioned the settlement given the former president’s contract doesn’t entitle him to a buyout of his contract if he resigns. “The UCF community and the citizens of Florida have every right to raise concerns about this buyout,” he said. “It is certainly one of the richest I’ve seen for someone who didn’t even serve a full year as president.”
Trustees also decided to stop performance bonus payments to Hitt, who retired June 30 after 26 years at the university’s helm.
Though Hitt refused to sit for a deposition with staffers for the House Committee for Public Integrity and Ethics, their investigation found he and former university Chief Financial Officer Bill Merck dismissed legal restrictions on leftover operating dollars. Hitt hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment from the Sentinel.
Stopping Hitt’s performance bonuses will save the UCF Foundation more than $300,000, according to trustees’ meeting agenda materials. Trustees voted in January to strip two years’ worth of bonus payments, valued at tens of thousands of dollars, from Merck and Whittaker.