FAU hits pause on dental school
Legislature withdraws funds to start program; $30M pledge unfulfilled
Florida Atlantic University won’t get a College of Dentistry any time soon after the state Legislature pulled back $30 million it allocated last year to help start the program.
In addition, Barbara Feingold, an FAU Board of Trustees member, has yet to sign a gift agreement on a $30 million pledge she made in 2022. There are questions about whether she ever will.
“The strategic direction of the university is fluid and always under consideration by the Board of Trustees,” FAU spokeswoman Lisa Metcalf said in an email to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Clearly, a College of Dentistry requires a pause and, possibly, a pivot. Regardless, all decisions are made in the best interests of the university.”
The funding loss appears to be related, in part, to a failed search last year for a new FAU president, which was the target of harsh criticism by Feingold, the State University System’s Board of Governors and some lawmakers.
“The search for the president and the way that everything was going, the pieces were falling apart,” said Peggy Gossett-Seidman, a Republican from Lighthouse Point who represents FAU but said she wasn’t involved in the decision to pull funding. “My thinking is that they are just going to start from scratch, start all over again.”
Others describe the move as more routine. State Sen. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican who sponsored last year’s appropriation request for FAU, asked for an additional $87.6 million for this year, which was denied. She said FAU hadn’t used the $30 million in capital dollars it received last year.
The “reversion was procedural, since additional funding was not provided this year, and the funding provided last year was not spent. I would be happy to revisit the project with the university and consider sponsoring the [appropriations request] again in the future if needed,” Harrell told the Sun Sentinel.
The dental school was first proposed in the summer of 2022 after Feingold made the $30 million pledge. The college was to be named for her late husband, Dr. Jeffrey Feingold, who was a former member of the Board of Trustees as well as a dentist and entrepreneur who made a fortune with a chain of dental clinics.
Barbara Feingold also is politically connected. She and her husband traveled to Israel with Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2019, and the governor spoke at Dr. Feingold’s funeral in 2021. Barbara Feingold gave $100,000 to Gov. Ron Desantis’ failed presidential campaign.
The State University System Board of Governors fast-tracked approval of the dental school in 2022, and the state Legislature allocated funding during the 2023 session. FAU had hoped to get millions more this year to help pay for the construction of the building and 40 new faculty and staff.
But the project started receiving more scrutiny as FAU became mired in a presidential search controversy.
On July 7, two days after FAU announced three finalists for president, the Board of Governors suspended the search, citing anomalies. One of the board’s concerns was that the search committee used an anonymous survey to narrow the finalists, which the board argued didn’t comply with state law. Attorney General Ashley Moody later issued an opinion agreeing with the state board.
Critics, including some faculty, donors and Democratic lawmakers, suspected the search was stopped because State Rep. Randy Fine, who had been endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office for the presidential job, wasn’t selected as a finalist. That speculation was heightened when Fine told the Sun Sentinel in October that DeSantis’ office had assured him he was a shoo-in for the job and that he could “waltz right in.”
An investigation by the Board of Governors’ inspector general concluded there was insufficient evidence that FAU was pressured to select Fine. The investigation said the FAU search violated several laws and Board of Governors regulations. The board is requiring FAU to start the search over again, but not until some new state regulations on presidential searches are adopted.
Brad Levine, who chaired the Board of Trustees and the presidential search committee last year, defended the search at the time while Feingold, the trustees’ vice chairwoman, publicly criticized it.
Feingold suggested at an Aug. 15 meeting she might not donate the $30 million she had pledged for the dental school because she was angry over how the search was conducted. She also said she hadn’t supported any of the three finalists selected.
At that meeting, Levine asked Feingold about the status of her pledge, which she said was inappropriate.
“As far as a commitment that I made, yes I made that. It could happen,” she said. “Nothing has been signed.”
Although FAU officials said at the time a dental school wasn’t contingent on Feingold’s donation, the project started facing more hurdles. Its estimated date for welcoming its first students was moved back from 2025 to 2026 to 2027.
Faculty members voiced skepticism about the dental school at an October Faculty Senate meeting, saying they had many questions about the timeline, the financing, the instability of university leadership and even the need. Although FAU officials said the school would address a shortage of dentists in the state, data compiled by the university showed that South Florida has a plentiful supply of dentists, and the shortages were in rural areas elsewhere in the state.
Feingold had argued there was a need, as Florida was one of the fastest-growing states but was home to only one public college of dentistry, the University of Florida. There are also two private dental schools, including Nova Southeastern University in Davie.
Contacted by the Sun Sentinel on Friday, Feingold wouldn’t say whether she’d still be willing to donate if state funding became available in the future. When asked about her donation, she issued the following statement: “My family and I are devastated
that former FAU Board Chair Brad Levine had the initial state funding for the College of Dentistry clawed back.”
Asked to clarify whether she was suggesting Levine actively worked to get the funding rescinded or whether the Legislature was punishing FAU for the presidential search problems, Feingold responded in a text message, “It has been reported that he lobbied to get the money clawed back. That is separate from his failed law breaking presidential search !!!!! ”
Levine remains on the FAU Board of Trustees but stepped down as chairman Feb. 8, two weeks after the state Board of Governors approved a vote of no confidence in his leadership. The trustees chose Piero Bussani, a lawyer who has been on the FAU Board of Trustees since 2021, to replace him. Feingold is the vice chairwoman.
Levine denies Feingold’s allegations that he lobbied against the dental school.
“Barbara Feingold is delusional in her attempt to rewrite the past. The real is question is why she didn’t honor her pledge commitment to the University,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “The answer might be the reason the legislature took back the dentistry school funding and the reason the FAU board skipped over her in their selection of a new chair. All that said, FAU continues to grow and is hitting new highs in academic standards and enrollment.”
The Sun Sentinel spoke with several legislators, none of whom confirmed Feingold’s allegations.
“I am unaware of that. I totally support the Dental School,” Harrell said.
Gossett-Seidman said, “I don’t have facts on that but heard the whole deal collapsed after the failed search.”
Alan Levine, a member of the FAU Board of Governors who was an initial supporter of the dental school and was critical of Brad Levine’s leadership, said he believes the Legislature’s decision had to do with the uncertainty of Feingold’s gift.
“My recollection was that FAU was pushing a very fast timeline, and that the ask of the Legislature considered that there would be a large philanthropic contribution for the program,” he said.
Along with the $30 million for construction, the state also had allocated $10 million in operating expenses for the dental school, $5 million recurring and $5 million non-recurring, according to an FAU document from August. That money has not been rescinded, Metcalf said.
She said the university has spent $760,000 in non-recurring money for consultants and other expenses related to meeting accreditation timelines. FAU still has $4.2 million left, which “is paused pending the project’s eventual outcome.”
The other $5 million “was NOT appropriated specifically for the College of Dentistry and was absorbed (added to) into the university’s base budget. Therefore, that $5 million can be used for any number of university initiatives,” Metcalf said.
Whether the dental school will be considered again in the future is unclear.
“The short of it is, FAU was not ready to spend the money so it was reverted to use for other purposes,” Lynnette Phillips, an aide for House Appropriations Chair Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach, said in an email.
“FAU can come back when they’re ready.”
Gossett-Seidman said she believes a dental school is still possible, just not now.
“There were just many questions looming and they’ll have to sort everything out,” she said. “That doesn’t mean there will never be one. My guess is everything will be pulled together in another year or two.”