Photo courtesy of USF
By Mahika Kukday
After almost four years of serving the University of South Florida, and one month before her contract is set to expire, President Rhea Law announced her plans to step down on Feb. 17.
USF launched its nationwide search for its next leader on Feb. 20 by naming a 15-member Presidential Search Committee.
In a university-wide email, Law affirmed that the time was right to “create space for new ideas and fresh perspectives to build on the momentum we have created.”
She will continue in her current role until a successor is named.
But Law is leaving at a time when politicians are stepping into the roles of university presidents across the state.
A week before she announced her planned departure, Florida Atlantic University (FAU) unanimously selected former Florida House of Representatives Majority Leader, Adam Hasner, as its eighth president.
And one week before that, Jeanette M. Nuñez was confirmed as Florida International University’s interim president by Gov. Ron DeSantis. To start this new job, she resigned from her former role as Florida’s lieutenant governor.
Both presidential appointees were met with skepticism because of the candidate’s lack of academic experience, WUSF reported, and were accompanied by at least five more politician-to-president shifts in Florida universities in the last few years.
“If a politician applied, would we have to hire them? No, we don’t have to hire anybody,” said Deanna Michael, associate professor of higher education and policy at USF St. Petersburg.
In her 27 years at USF so far, Michael has taught at and helped lead the university through major changes. She’s been a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT), the State University System (SUS) of Florida’s Board of Governors, the USF Faculty Council and more.
Michael told The Crow’s Nest that she’s not sure why politicians are seeking out university president positions.
“Politicians are used to being at the summit of power or close to it,” she said. “As president of a university, it’s a humble leadership job. If students aren’t pleased with the decision, they will be out in front of your building.”
And even without a legislator in the top seat, Michael said that “legislature passes laws all the time that affect us.”
She referred to last month’s 57% decrease in general education course offerings across Florida’s 28 state universities, in compliance with ongoing efforts to remove “identity politics and more from curriculums,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
And as a chair in the department of education and an expert in federal, state and local education policy, Michael knows what a presidential search looks like at USF, and what this one might entail.
“We were looking for a unifier last time,” she said, referring to the 2022 search that ended in Law’s appointment to the presidency after serving in the interim capacity for seven months.
Michael was a trustee at the time, and said the president needed to be able to guide the university through consolidation by being, “inward looking and understanding the USF culture and the different cultures [of St. Petersburg and Sarasota campuses].”
Especially since Law was set to replace Steve Currall, whose presidency from 2019-2021 was the shortest in USF’s history and ended abruptly.
Three years on, USF is in a different place.
Last year, it secured a record $738 million in research funding. That was surely helped along by USF’s 2023 acceptance into the Association of American Universities (AAU), an elite group of eminent research institutions that comprise the top 3% of universities in the U.S. and Canada, Law said in a press conference on Feb. 17.
A new College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing will open this fall. Sports got a boost with an on-campus stadium in the works and NCAA women’s lacrosse making its USF debut earlier this month.
To keep that momentum going, Michael recognizes that “we need a leader who the academic community can respect, the [local] community can respect and our political leaders in the Pinellas area and Sarasota and Hillsborough can respect.”
She thinks that person will come from an administrative or research role –, or from another presidency.
“We have to have somebody that understands our scale,” Michael said, emphasizing that someone who has experience running a “large bureaucracy” would be ideal, since USF is on the path to continue growing.
BOT chair Will Weatherford announced a 15-member Presidential Search Committee on Feb. 20. Compliant with the SUS Board of Governor’s regulations for selecting a President, the list includes a student, BOT members, USF faculty and more.
- Mike Griffins (chair) – vice chair of the USF Board of Trustees; co-head of Florida Region, vice chairman of Savills
- Charbel Barakat – USF Board of Trustees; general counsel, D.R. Horton, Inc.
- Derrick Brooks – Board member, EVP Corporate and Community Development, Vinik Sports Group; motivational speaker; NFL Hall of Famer; board member, Kforce, Inc.; president and founder, Derrick Brooks Charities
- Sandra “Sandy” Callahan – USF Board of Trustees; former chief financial officer, TECO Energy
- John Couris – President and CEO, Tampa General Hospital
- Alexa Grubbs – USF third-year student, Judy Genshaft Honors College
- Oscar Horton – USF Board of Trustees; president and chief executive officer, Sun State International Trucks
- Ken Jones – Florida Board of Governors; founder and managing partner, Third Lake Partners
- Merritt Martin – USF Foundation Board of Directors; vice president, Public Affairs and Strategic Communications; chief of staff, External Affairs, Moffitt Cancer Center
- Andrew “Andy” Mayts, Jr. – USF Financing Corp. and USF Property Corp.; partner, Public Sector co-chair, Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP
- Harold “Hal” Mullis – Past chair, USF Board of Trustees; president, Trenam Law; Board of Governors designee
- Jenifer Jasinski Schneider – Interim dean, USF College of Education; professor, USF College of Education Literacy Studies
- Debbie Sembler – USF St. Petersburg Campus Board; vice chair, USF Foundation Board of Directors
- Sylvia Wilson Thomas – USF vice president for Research & Innovation; president & CEO of the USF Research Foundation, professor of engineering
- Andrea Gonzmart Williams – USF Foundation Board of Directors; fifth-generation owner and operator, Columbia Restaurant Group
USF will continue with its previous partner, SP&A Executive Search, to preliminarily screen and recommend applicants to the search committee for interviews. The BOT will have the final say.
Michael reflected fondly on Law’s tenure, having worked with her closely. She said that Law’s genuine connection to the USF community and her appreciation of each campus’ unique culture greatly eased the consolidation process.
She’s confident in the search committee and hopes to find similar enthusiasm in USF’s future president.
