UCF leader aims to steer university through crisis
When Beverly Seay took over the board that oversees UCF, a top objective for one of the nation’s largest universities was to move past a painful political episode that led to the resignation of a president who had only been in the post for eight months.
Now, nearly a year later, it’s too early to know what Seay’s lasting mark on UCF will be. But she has swiftly laid the groundwork for a new era just in time for another major crisis to hit the sprawling campus east of Orlando: severe economic consequences brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
Seay, who has been on the Board of Trustees since 2013, has made changes that she said will strengthen the board’s oversight, including the addition of a staff person at the university who primarily works with
board members.
The job is intended to help prevent the type of financial missteps that led to rebuke from lawmakers and the state university system last year.
Under the prior board regime, Seay told the Orlando Sentinel, “it was more that the board was being managed than the board was managing the president.”
In March, Seay closed a deal to hire Alexander Cartwright as UCF’s new president in the midst of a global pandemic that shut down in-person classes and canceled major events such as last weekend’s graduation ceremonies.
Public records and interviews show Seay was firmly in command of UCF’s search for its sixth president. She frequently exchanged messages with the search consultant hired by the board. And, ultimately, Seay helped persuade her favored candidate — Cartwright — to officially apply for the job less than 72 hours before he was named to the role, a timeline that drew criticism from those who said the process should have been more transparent.
Cartwright’s late entry into the process meant students, employees and other members of the public had little time to give input about his candidacy. Board members also made the decision in late March, when the campus had already shuttered to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
But others applauded the board’s pick and people who have worked with Seay during the past two decades say that decisive, take-charge approach is in line with the type of management style she offered in the private sector, as well.
“There’s an old saying, ‘When you want something done, give it to a busy person,” said George Cheros, CEO of the Orlando-based National Center for Simulation. “She’s the busy person. If she accepts the role, she’ll make sure she performs.”
She’s “not afraid to jump into the details”
Seay is a University of Michigan graduate and computer scientist who made a name for herself as she built the modeling and simulation unit at Science Applications International Corporation, a Washington D.C.-based company with an office in the Central Florida Research Park near UCF’s campus. She had a key role in growing that firm’s presence in Orlando to the point where it rivaled Lockheed Martin, said Waymon Armstrong, CEO and president of Engineering & Computer Simulations.
“In this time, it was a man’s world,” said Armstrong, adding, “There wasn’t any glass ceiling with her. She was one of the top people, period.”
Seay, 67, has been a “real champion,” for girls and women in the industry, said Teresa Jacobs, the former Orange County mayor and current school board chair. Jacobs got to know Seay as she led the Florida Simulation Summit, an annual event designed to showcase the industry in the region.
“You give her a task and an assignment, and you can be sure she will succeed,” Jacobs said.
After leaving Science Applications International Corporation in 2012, Seay went to work for CAE, a Montreal-based company with an Orlando presence that provides training for the civil aviation, defense and security, and healthcare markets.
Between 2016 and 2018, Seay served as the executive director of the start-up Nebraska Applied Research Institute, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the University of Nebraska.
Taking over board after turmoil
Just five months before Seay took the top spot on the board, Dale Whittaker resigned as UCF’s president as he came under fire for the university’s use of leftover operating money for construction.
Republican lawmakers in the Florida House urged Whittaker to resign in February 2019 and, ultimately, ended an investigation into the misspending that started under former longtime UCF President John Hitt.
UCF’s Board of Trustees came under criticism during the crisis, too.
Several members of the Board of Governors, who oversee the state’s entire university system, censured UCF’s trustees, including Seay, saying their lax oversight had allowed university staff to misuse state money. One said, pointedly, the issue was “no more embarrassing than to the trustees.”
Former chairman Marcos Marchena resigned from the board last February as scrutiny of the university intensified and his successor, Robert Garvy, left the board in January.
The governor and the Board of Governors, an appointed board that oversees the state university system, select the people who make up the Board of Trustees at UCF and the other 11 public universities in Florida. They are unpaid posts, yet highly sought-after: Last year, 21 people applied for three openings on UCF’s board. The trustees at each university select who will lead their board.
People appointed to university trustee boards often are politically connected. Seay served on former Gov. Jeb Bush’s transition team and on a campaign committee for President George W. Bush. Over the years, she’s given modest contributions to Republicans running for the state Legislature as well as to a Political Action Committee linked to Science Applications International Corporation, her former employer.
Seay’s biggest job so far as board chairwoman was finding a new president, and text messages obtained through a records request show she was instrumental in recruiting Cartwright, the former chancellor of the University of MissouriColumbia.
On Monday, March 2, the evening before a committee of trustees was to decide which candidates should be invited to campus for interviews, consultant Alberto Pimentel wrote in a text message to Seay that at least one of the trustees had not received the applications until 5 p.m. and they would “need to provide more time for committee members to review the files.”
“This can be done without much fuss but that means that we will use Thursday to discuss the candidates instead of interview them,” Pimentel wrote.
Seay wrote back early the next morning, saying she thought “we should also go around the room and discuss what each of us are looking for in the candidates.”
“And I disagree,” she added, apparently at odds with Pimentel’s suggestion that committee members should have more time to review the applications. A few hours later, the group selected seven people to come to campus later in the week for interviews. Cartwright was not among them.
Then as UCF’s campus ground to a standstill in mid-March, the Board of Trustees chairwoman and the search consultant exchanged rapid-fire text messages about an exciting new “prospect” they were trying to coax into applying for the post.
The candidate was Cartwright.
“I mentioned Tuesday but he is still quite nervous about the livestream,” Pimentel typed on Sunday, March 15, referring to an interview that would be broadcast online, to Seay.
“I have it worked out when you want to discuss,” Seay replied.
Not more than 48 hours later, Cartwright officially became a candidate.
“Alex just sent his materials!!” Pimentel wrote to Seay at 7:27 p.m. on March 17.
“Yay!” Seay responded, adding “Strong.”
Three days later, she and her colleagues selected him to be the university’s next president. That night, Pimentel typed a message to Seay. UCF redacted part of that message, saying a few lines were personal in nature and not subject to public disclosure. The first part revealed Cartwright planned to leave Mizzou soon and that he and his wife were considering visiting UCF’s campus the following week.
“OK,” Seay wrote. “We will make this happen.”
Board will have more oversight
About four months after Seay became the board’s leader last year, she and her colleagues formed an office specifically for the trustees. The office includes two employees who already worked for the university, plus a third employee who previously worked with the UCF Foundation Board of Directors in a similar role and receives an annual salary of $135,810. Such an office, which isn’t typical at other Florida universities, will mean a greater check on the university’s administration, Seay said.
Seay is already signaling that she plans to keep a closer watch on the university’s spending. The university expects to lose $48 million in revenue through August in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. But during a meeting last month, she made clear that the virus can’t be made a scapegoat for problems that already existed.
“The underlying problems need to be addressed,” Seay said, adding “They can’t be covered up by COVID-19.”
Seay’s role as a trustee is not her only tie to the university. Three years after she joined the board, her husband Steve Seay was hired in 2016 by the UCF Athletics Association. He is responsible for helping athletes find jobs and apply to graduate school, a position that pays a $65,000 salary, a university spokesman said. The athletic association is technically a separate organization from the university, but the athletic director reports directly to UCF’s president.
Now retired from her professional life, Seay has two daughters and three grandchildren. She and her husband, who married in 2005, live in Winter Springs.
After spending her career in Central Florida, Seay said she wanted to serve on the university’s board and eventually sought to become chairwoman because she realized the institution’s importance to the region.
“I’d like to encourage the community to invest in UCF … whether it’s through their time or their talents or their donations,” she said. “This is our community university and it will pay back in dividends.”