Reveal of last-minute UCF president candidate expected
Committee likely to meet and share news Wednesday
As the University of Central Florida enters the final stretch of its president search, a mystery candidate — one who is now the president of a research university — is expected to enter the fray.
Consultant Alberto Pimentel and search committee members didn’t reveal the man’s identity during a meeting Monday, though several have been courting him for weeks. They’re expected to meet again Wednesday morning to review his credentials and decide whether he should join two other finalists who will sit for remote interviews this Friday with the Board of Trustees, which plans to select the university’s next president then.
Florida law demands that state university president searches be open to the public, but committee members on Monday defended shielding the man’s identity from the public until the last couple of days of the search, while others made their applications available weeks ago. Trustees
said last Friday the likely candidate had spoken with several trustees individually, but not as a group, which Florida law would require them to open to the public.
University spokesman Chad Binette wrote in an email the likely candidate is the president of “major research university,” but did not say which one. Search committee members referred to the applicant as “he” and “him” repeatedly during Monday’s meeting.
Pursuing another position is “high-risk” for those who are in high-profile posts elsewhere, committee member Bill Self said during an interview.
“I’m not going to give them any more weight or less weight because they came in late,” said Self, who is the chair of the UCF Faculty Senate and a trustee.
But secretive president searches are beneficial to search consultants, who like to promise privacy to candidates and hope to peddle them to other clients if they’re not picked, said Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida. University president searches are supposed to be