Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, July 17. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.
Charting a new course in Florida
The on-again, off-again search for a new president of Florida Atlantic University is back on again — complete with a controversial political tie, as our Amanda Friedman reports.
Robert Allen Jr. helped to reshape New College of Florida. The South Florida “superyacht lawyer” makes his living doing legal work for the wealthy and has long been involved in GOP politics. A New College alumnus, he says he told Gov. Ron DeSantis about vacancies on the institution’s board, paving the way for the Republican governor to appoint the new members who are now remaking the college in a conservative image.
Now Allen is on the committee that’s seeking a new president for Florida Atlantic University. FAU, a 30,000-student public research university in Boca Raton, dwarfs New College, which, as the state’s honors college, measures its enrollment in the hundreds.
Remember: FAU scrapped its first attempt at a presidential search amid partisan discord. Last year, State Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican, wasn’t named on a list of finalists even though he claimed he’d been told the job was earmarked for him. Fine complained that he’d been asked about his sexual orientation and gender identity as part of the search process, and Florida’s Board of Governors eventually ordered the search redone, saying open-government laws had been violated.
Today, it’s hard to miss the political shades in Allen’s thinking, even as he told The Chronicle he doesn’t want to turn FAU into a version of Hillsdale. He says he:
- Worries about a lack of conservative professors at Florida’s public universities.
- Is concerned about an overemphasis on gender-studies programs at state institutions.
- Wants candidates who have “pre-existing relationships with key constituencies at the state level” for the FAU presidency.
On a more traditional note, Allen also said he wants the next president to help FAU rise in national rankings and draw more out-of-state students.
Critics say Allen’s involvement is a warning. “It’s not a great leap of the imagination to think that he might be involved in an overhaul of FAU,” said Nicole Morse, who directed FAU’s Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies before leaving this spring after they felt pressure because they were involved in pro-Palestinian protests.
Allen dismisses concerns that Republicans are politicizing governance at public colleges, arguing institutions have plenty of well-connected Democrats. “They don’t like what they call ‘interference,’ but that is a misnomer, as it is based on the false premise that, in effect, their university belongs to them,” Allen wrote.
The bigger picture: One of the country’s largest public higher-education systems is changing as Florida Republicans show that elections have consequences. The fact that some faculty members and administrators have been seeking to flee isn’t likely to deter others from following the Sunshine State’s blueprint.
Read the full story: Charges of Political Favoritism Sank This University’s Presidential Search. It’s Time for Round 2.
