UF is searching for its next president. Again.
This is UF’s third presidential search in four years. Following the abrupt resignation of Ben Sasse in 2024, Dr. Donald Landry was selected by the UF Board of Trustees as interim president when Santa J. Ono, the University of Michigan’s then-president, was rejected.
The university announced the launch of its latest presidential search committee in December 2025, and it’s held three listening sessions since the Spring semester kicked off. However, these meetings differed from last year’s.
Following Sasse’s resignation, presidential search committee listening sessions were filled with comments on character, politics and conflicting opinions. This year, each meeting remained brief, with minimal comments.
“A presidential search should be inspiring,” said Pasha Agoes, a faculty senate member representing the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Everyone should be giddy with excitement.”
Agoes said he began to feel less enthusiastic about UF’s presidential search following Ono’s rejection.
A search committee announced Ono as the sole finalist for the position in May 2025. But when the Florida Board of Governors questioned him on his stance on diversity, equity and inclusion prior to his confirmation vote, it decided he did not meet its criteria. Conservative board members cited Ono’s past climate justice initiatives and inclusion of gender pronouns on his Instagram profile as a threat to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-woke agenda.
It was the first time in Florida public university history the Board of Governors rejected the sole finalist of a presidential search committee. Now, the overlap between politics and higher education is sparking fatigue among some faculty and students.
“We are an academic institution,” Agoes said. “We are not a political institution.”
Agoes said some of his colleagues are also feeling fatigued. UF’s presidential candidate should be a visionary, and they should be long term, he said. In recent years, faculty hasn't seen much of the latter in Tigert Hall.
In considering his ideal candidate, Agoes said it’s important for UF’s next president to recognize the university’s mission as a diverse center of research.
Juan Osorio, a 20-year-old UF political science junior, said the presidential search has been disappointing because he feels it’s becoming increasingly politicized.
UF’s struggle to find a long-term president is "embarrassing," he said.
Osorio is the president of UF College Democrats, and he said he’s received questions from shocked students regarding why Ono was turned away. He felt less shocked, personally, because of Florida’s traditionally conservative state government and its influence on the presidential selection process, he said.
Sasse, UF’s 13th president, denied involvement with DeSantis during his presidential search. However, reports showed DeSantis’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier, guided Sasse through the selection process.
Osorio said young students won’t fully understand the importance of what a president does if the current political climate persists. In other words, he worries incoming future students will not get to experience a president with no political background.
“It is definitely dismaying students who are paying attention," he said. “They know what kind of pressure we’re under from the state legislature.”
The rise of search firms
Judith Wilde, a research professor at George Mason University, said a variety of factors affect shortened tenures and higher search frequencies.
Wilde, along with her research partner, has been studying university presidential searches for over a decade. They found one big factor in particular that affects presidential searches: search firms.
A search firm is an external company hired to recruit executive leadership candidates in education, such as a university president. Hiring a search firm means less work for the presidential search committee and the Board of Trustees, Wilde said.
In the late 1970s, Wilde and her research partner saw search firms being used in about 2% of presidential searches, she said. By the late 2010s, the percentage jumped to 92%.
UF hired SP&A Executive Search for the searches that brought in Sasse and Ono as candidates.
For this year’s search, UF hired Korn Ferry, a global organizational consulting firm. Korn Ferry was involved in the University of South Florida’s presidential search last year, producing current President Moez Limayem. In 2005, Korn Ferry also assisted Cornell University in finding its 12th president.
“We’ve found that there is very little due diligence done on the part of the search firms,” Wilde said. “If they do it, they do it for an extra cost, and often say they won’t guarantee the work.”
An aspect of due diligence is contacting a presidential candidate’s suggested references, she said. But just 51% of all search firm contracts she studied followed this step. Skipping parts of due diligence may lead to undisclosed areas of a candidate’s background coming out during their presidency, which could cut their tenure short, she said.
Despite issues within search firms, Wilde describes them as “a knight in shining armor riding in on a white horse” in the eyes of a board or committee. Search firms are appealing because they offer to do the work themselves, she said.
“Board of governors typically are appointed for … four to six years,” Wilde said. “They may never have been involved in a search before, and it may scare them to have this great responsibility on them.”
University presidential searches have been on the rise nationwide, Wilde said, but Florida is especially a hotspot.
“I think at last count, it’s six of the open presidencies in Florida somehow magically ended up getting a president that was a political friend of DeSantis,” Wilde said.
Florida International University President Jeanette Nuñez, University of West Florida President Manny Díaz Jr. and New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran are all former politicians with ties to DeSantis.
The Board of Governors answered a request for comment on the UF presidential search by redirecting The Alligator to the university’s own communications team, which did not have any comments.
Listening sessions have concluded for the meantime, and the next steps for the presidential search committee are unclear. The search for Ono took seven months from the date the search committee was announced to the date he was named as the sole finalist.
If Interim President Landry is not selected to take the role permanently, his contract stipulates he receives $2 million in annual severance pay through August 2027.
Contact Leona Masangkay at lmasangkay@alligator.org. Follow them on X @leo_amasangkay.
Leona is a second-year journalism student and the Spring 2025 University Administration reporter. They previously worked as the Santa Fe reporter. In their free time, Leona enjoys going to the gym, watching Marvel movies and traveling the country for music festivals.
