With the future of UF's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences dean search in question after recent candidate withdrawals, the search committee will meet Friday afternoon to decide what to do next.
Pramod Khargonekar, committee chairman and College of Engineering dean, said the committee must decide whether to continue the search.
In February, the committee chose four finalists, but two of them dropped out in the last week.
Peter Coclanis, associate provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, dropped out Tuesday because of UF's continuing budget crisis and administrative restructuring.
David Featherman, director of the University of Michigan's Center for Advancing Research & Solutions for Society, withdrew Friday for personal reasons.
Khargonekar said the committee did not anticipate this situation, and it needs to evaluate whether the search is still viable.
"My concern is, given all the things that have happened, can we really recruit an outstanding dean to lead the college?" he asked.
UF Provost Janie Fouke, who has final say in the decision, said she's concerned that only two candidates are left in the search, especially since they have similar backgrounds.
Paul D'Anieri and Barbara Romzek, the remaining dean candidates, both serve as University of Kansas College of Liberal Arts and Sciences associate deans, and they have educational backgrounds in political science.
Meanwhile, UF's CLAS covers the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.
"This is a very diverse college and so you'd think if you got a really diverse applicant pool, you'd see lots of different ideas about what might represent its future," Fouke said. "We haven't had that benefit."
