Florida Trustees Vote For Ben Sasse To Be University President

The University of Florida Board of Trustees voted unanimously to name Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) the school’s 13th president. The decision now is subject to final confirmation by the Florida Board of Governors on Nov. 10.

The much-anticipated meeting with Sasse followed weeks of controversy at the university. Faculty and students repeatedly voiced their disapproval of both the process that resulted in him being the sole finalist, and of his candidacy, in part because of his public positions on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights.

Today, outside the trustees’ meeting, protestors could be heard shouting, “Anti-women, anti-gay, Ben Sasse go away.” Inside, during the public comment part of the meeting, a series of speakers spoke out against Sasse’s selection.

The University of Florida Faculty Senate overwhelmingly approved a vote of no confidence in the selection of Sasse, passing a recent resolution that said in part “the next President should come already equipped to lead an institution of this caliber rather than aiming to learn on the job. Anything less will result in a lack of faith in leadership.”

The University of Florida Student Senate has also gone on record criticizing the selection of Sasse for the job, and students have protested so forcefully that the university invoked a decades-old regulation barring protesters from inside campus buildings.

The portion of Tuesday’s meeting dealing with the Sasse selection included a lengthy description of the search process by trustee Rahul Patel, who chaired the search committee. Patel said there had been “hundreds of prospects” for the job and that he had spoken with 35 of them, most “multiple times.”

The committee then narrowed the field to 12 prospects, said Patel, including nine sitting presidents of R1 universities. Of those 12, seven were also either presidents or provosts of Association of American Universities (AAU) institutions, and more than half were women or persons of color.

From the field of 12, the committee then focused on six candidates, all of whom, Patel claimed, were unwilling to be named publicly as a finalist unless they were assured they would be the sole finalist.

The confidentiality theme was also echoed by Board Chair Mori Hosseini, who defended the secrecy of the search process, arguing that Florida’s new law governing the selection of public university presidents “helped us attract leaders from across the country” that we would have otherwise been unable to recruit.

The floor was then given to Sasse, who spoke confidently about the themes and priorities he believed the university would need to embrace. He also answered more than an hour of questions from the Board, including one that elicited Sasse’s pledge that he would practice “political celibacy” and not engage in any partisan political activity should he become president.

To another question, Sasse said he was a zealous defender of academic freedom and an advocate for faculty tenure. He said maintaining both was key to being able to attract and retain outstanding faculty. Before their unanimous vote, the trustees individually voiced their confident support of Sasse, including the one faculty representative to the Board, Amanda J. Phalin.

Regarding his selection, Sasse said, “I am grateful for the Board of Trustees’ unanimous vote and for their endorsement of our shared vision to make the University of Florida a world-changing institution and a pioneer in higher education. Education properly understood isn’t exclusively or even primarily about transmitting information. Education is about learning how to humbly and meaningfully engage with new ideas. We want Gators to engage ideas. I want our students to be challenged and to rejoice in the challenge. We want Gators to go out and serve Florida and the world. Let’s go out and build something great together.”

Despite the vote and the board’s obvious enthusiasm for Sasse, significant segments of the campus are likely to continue to be skeptical of the search process and Sasse’s qualifications for the job. Whether he can turn those attitudes around and how long it might take will be closely watched not just in Gainesville or Florida, but in higher education circles across the nation. His forceful and thoughtful performance on Tuesday suggests that Sasse is up for the challenge.