FAU presidential search panelist: Our work has been ‘slandered’
The intersection of politics and academia is at the same time both fragile and dangerous. This has never been more clear than this past week, when it appears that political influence may have pressured the State University System Board of Governors to halt the search process for the next president of Florida Atlantic University.
Numerous press reports suggest that the motive for this interference is that the university committee empowered to conduct the search did not include the governor’s reported personal selection for the position among the three outstanding candidates put forward to the school’s board of trustees for nomination to the position.
If correct, these reports would indicate a continuing trend of meddling in the state university and state college presidential searches to award these important positions to favored politicians, as has been reported in the most recent searches at the University of Florida, New College of Florida, and South Florida State College.
To effect this outrageous suspension of search activities, the chancellor of the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, has accused the presidential search committee of improper activity in its search process based on wholly inaccurate and out of context actions. The search committee included a broadbased representation of FAU stakeholders, including representatives of the faculty, students, administration, outside educators and donors, all of the highest pedigrees. I have been honored to be included in this group.
The search resulted in over 60 applications for the position, 12 of which were sitting or former university presidents, another dozen or more senior university administrators, and other candidates with varying degrees of alternative backgrounds. The finalists that the search committee overwhelmingly put through to the university Board of Trustees included a vice admiral and superintendent of the United States Naval Academy, a former chancellor of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, and a dean and former interim vice president of Florida State University.
As a participant in the selection process, I feel comfortable that we had appropriate access to all of the applicants and their backgrounds, and we had thoughtful and thorough committee discussions about them. I am excited with the candidates we have put forward. I feel personally outraged and slandered by the implications of the chancellor’s letter on me and my colleagues, for what appears to be an attempt to unwind our successful, hard work and reopen a search for a candidate more to the liking of certain politicians.
The search committee followed a process required of it by the Board of Governors, who had a representative on the committee. This process resulted in recommendations of the finalists who were most qualified for the job. Chancellor Ray Rodrigues should respect our decision and allow the process to proceed.
Dick Schmidt has been a South Florida business leader for many years and he and his family are FAU’s largest donors. Schmidt is a member of the FAU presidential selection committee, an FAU graduate (class of 1970) and former assistant professor at FAU College of Business. As the CEO of Schmidt Companies, he lives and works in Boca Raton.