During the Wednesday meeting, we made it quite clear that FSU needs a president who is an academician who can work with various constituencies, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, the community, and the Legislature, in order to continue moving us forward to the Top 25 and to retain and recruit faculty. We discussed the rumors about a certain politician as a candidate as well as Funk’s previous recruitment of T.K. Wetherell. I have to say that I got the distinct impression that the fix was in with Wetherell, and still concerned with the mentions of Mitch Daniels in his interview, I asked whether the fix appears to be in this time as well. He responded that he wasn’t feeling any pressure, but with the press naming a certain politician as a contender[1][[2][3], it sure is going to make recruitment more difficult. Mr. Funk does seem quite aware of this as well as evidenced in the open faculty forum.
I found it very interesting at Thursday’s faculty forum that after Mr. Funk introduced himself and highlighted his successful placement of many presidents at many universities—including his alma mater Purdue and Southern Illinois University[4]--he was asked to explain the placement of Mitch Daniels. Mr. Funk backpedaled a bit by positing that he doesn’t vote for the candidates--he just puts forward names. He jokingly said that voting for a president is above his pay grade, but I’m not so sure of that—seems one search can be more than my salary[5]. But after making the point that he doesn’t actually choose presidents, he spent much time discussing how he successfully placed Donna Shalala as the president of the University of Miami (who I hear was a member of the American Federation of Teachers when she was a professor at Baruch College). He also seemed to suggest that the only politicians he had recruited were Daniels and Wetherell, but he failed to mention Frank Brogan (and, let’s not forget that Shalala was also a politician, albeit one with higher ed cred). The bottom line is that it doesn’t appear to me that Funk and his firm have any problem with placing connected politicians with university jobs in Florida.
Mr. Funk was also asked about how he recruits diverse candidates. His answer was satisfactory (according to my colleague who asked the question), and he provided examples of recent placements including the new president of Ohio State. I hope that he follows this plan to recruit a diverse pool of candidates--from across the country and beyond. As a colleague mentioned at the faculty forum, there’s been lots of discussion that the BOT has suggested that the next president should have a tie to FSU, too. This provincialism is certainly problematic and suggests again that a front-runner may have been decided.
A friend of mine suggested to me today that it appears that some disconcerting (or in his words, shady) stuff has been going on around here lately that can certainly affect the results of the search—the Koch brothers’ deal[6][7], the way Eric Barron left[8], the proposed funding for the FAMU-FSU engineering split right when a new president and a new interim president took office[9], and the New York Times article[10] and the FBI Title IX investigation[11] that allege a cover-up of a sexual assault. Add to all of this the make-up of the search committee and the press about the political front-runner for the president position.
I sure hope that we can, through an open search process, prove the world wrong and show that we are transparent and committed to the promise of higher education by choosing a president who understands what is best for faculty, our students, and the people of the State of Florida. As each of my colleagues loudly and clearly stated at the faculty forum and on the Presidential Search website, that person must be a scholar. I think our students understand this as well.[12]
We really need to use our academic networks to help recruit scholars who are currently administrators and are up to the challenge of leading this university forward. There was a place to nominate candidates on the presidential search site, but I can't seem to find it as I write this post. But the next advisory search committee meeting will be held Wednesday, April 23, at 10:00 am in room 103 in the Turnbull Center (see http://presidentialsearch.fsu.edu/ ) It would be great to see faculty at this open public meeting!
