UNF reveals four finalists for school’s president position, first public glimpse at process

A former college or university provost and a few deans are in the ultimate rounds of interviews to turn out to be the College of North Florida’s seventh president. Two are from the University of Kentucky, a single from the College of Arizona and one from yet another Florida university. Two oversaw law faculties. None of the finalists are females.

The next president will swap David Szymanski, who left the position in September to turn into the CEO and government director for UNF MedNexus, a university-based mostly professional medical and health care plan. Pamela Chally, a previous provost and vice-president of academic affairs has been serving as the school’s interim president. It really is not known if Chally used for the long-lasting position. When asked by the Instances-Union in a previous interview, Chally declined to say if she planned to apply.

The UNF Board of Trustees not long ago released a checklist of the remaining 4 presidential candidates. University presidential searches used to be public previously in the procedure but a point out regulation that went into impact in March shades presidential searches from the community eye until a checklist of at minimum a few closing candidates is compiled. The regulation makes facts like candidates’ names, ages, race and gender — exempt from public records requests. This marks the initial college presidential search in Florida getting place beneath the new constraints.

The presidential lookup began final September and now that finalists have been exposed, the remaining rounds of interviews are expected to begin in May. Finalists are:

• David Blackwell
  Blackwell is a previous provost at the University of Kentucky, wherever he held the place for a few years till 2021. Other roles he held at the faculty bundled chief tutorial officer and dean of the school’s organization and economics school where he led fundraising endeavours.

• David Brennen
  Brennen was the dean of the College of Kentucky School of Law for 11 several years until 2020. Prior to that, he served as a regulation professor at the University of Ga and a deputy director with the Association of American Regulation Educational facilities. He’s a co-founder and co-editor of Nonprofit Legislation Prof Weblog as nicely as numerous other legislation-relevant abstracts.

• Moez Limayem
  Limayem currently serves as dean for the College of South Florida’s organization college. He has been at the university since 2012. He co-authored “Knowledge The Use of Technology-Primarily based Self Provider: The Consumer’s Place of Perspective” and wrote “Building an Informing Business School: A Case Analyze of USF’s Muma Higher education of Small business.”

• Marc. L Miller
  Miller now serves as the dean of the University of Arizona’s school of regulation. He served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Scholarship at the faculty from 2003-2005. Miller co-founded the Federal Sentencing Reporter, a regulation journal and is an editor for a sequence of books that concentration on the intersections of environmental science, regulation and policy.

Tale continues

Board of Trustees member and UNF Faculty Association President John White explained in an job interview very last thirty day period with the student newspaper UNF Spinnaker that the research committee’s hope is that the privateness granted at the commencing of the look for process would persuade a lot more candidates to apply for the placement. It really is unclear as of publication time how quite a few candidates the posture been given. In the previous UNF presidential research in 2017, 55 folks “confirmed potent interest” and the search committee sooner or later narrowed the pool to 4 finalists.

Nevertheless, critics of the new law worried it would shield candidates and respective universities from accountability and transparency through the system.

“To exempt this look for from general public scrutiny, in accordance to a lot of [faculty members], is a step in the erroneous path,” White advised Spinnaker.

What is subsequent for the UNF presidential lookup?

A number of community forums and meet-and-greet functions are scheduled to give finalists an option to fulfill with the university local community. The initially took location Friday with Marc Miller, who had three separate periods with college students, employees and college.

Discussion boards are scheduled to consider position via Might 12 in accordance to the university’s public schedule which is accessible by checking out www.unf.edu/trustees/president_research/notices.aspx. Just after just about every check out, neighborhood members can fill out a survey to share their feedback. Study results following applicant boards will be posted on UNF’s site and will be reviewed by the Board of Trustees.

Moreover, a few of the 4 finalists responded to a request for comment from the college student newspaper about the process so significantly and why they are fascinated in the job.

Blackwell mentioned economic improvement possibilities at the college. Brennen unveiled he is a Florida native and very first-generation college or university graduate. Miller kept his assertion transient, but claimed he was fired up about the opportunity. Limayan unsuccessful to reply to Spinnaker in time for publication.

The Board of Trustees is scheduled to maintain finalist interviews May well 13-14 and to have their meeting on Might 16. The ultimate presidential appointee will turn into UNF’s seventh president.

Emily Bloch is an schooling reporter for The Florida Situations-Union. Adhere to her on Twitter or electronic mail her. Indication up for her publication.

This article originally appeared on Florida Occasions-Union: This is what we know about UNF’s search for its seventh president