FGCU preps for revamped president search

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Gulf Coast University Board of Trustees largely went back to the drawing board Thursday as it reopened a search for a new school president and extended current President Mike Martin's contract.

Martin’s contract with the university was set to conclude at the end of this month. But FGCU trustees elected to extend Martin’s term “until June 30, 2023, or sooner, if a successor is selected.”

The search for Martin’s replacement has taken longer than expected, after the trustees last month put on hold the selection of a finalist for the job in a move that caused some on the panel to grumble.

“We cannot do this again. I am personally embarrassed that we are in this situation, angry that we are in this situation. I do not like my time being wasted. I know that my colleagues don’t like my time being wasted,” Luis Rivera, a member of the trustees and shareholder at the law firm GrayRobinson, P.A., said during Thursday’s meeting.

FGCU Trustees:Florida Gulf Coast University to reopen president search

The lone candidate:FGCU president search down to one finalist, former dean Robert Gregerson

Confirmed:U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse OK'd as UF's next president despite community, student pushback

An initial search process that launched in April culminated with three finalists selected by a committee tasked with identifying candidates. The trustees interviewed the candidates during a Nov. 2 meeting, which was expected to be the day that a finalist was forwarded to the state university system’s Board of Governors for consideration.

But the trustees during that meeting stalled the process, with Chairman Blake Gable attributing the delay to a conversation he had with state university system Board of Governors Chairman Brian Lamb.

Two finalists subsequently dropped out of the running for the post, leaving Robert Gregerson, president of the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and a former dean of FGCU’s College of Arts and Sciences, as the sole finalist.

The trustees reopened the search on Nov. 17 and set a goal of ultimately selecting three finalists.

“We can’t look backwards. Given what has happened, a new fresh start might be in order,” Ed Morton, vice chairman of the trustees, said Thursday during a discussion of the school’s next steps.

As the trustees move forward, several uncertainties remain. Still undecided are the timeline for the search, who will serve on a search committee for the university’s second effort and when a finalist would be chosen.

Gable on Thursday said he intends to reach out to members of a search committee that was tasked with selecting the finalists to ascertain which committee members will stay engaged in the process.

“The last few months haven’t been exactly what anybody would have scripted, but that doesn’t matter. We are where we are, and we’re going to figure it out. I am not losing any sleep over it, nor should anybody else,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the university told The News Service of Florida that a search committee is likely to meet in January.

The trustees also on Thursday directed university staff to put out a request for proposals from search firms, even though the school is currently under contract with the firm AGB Search. Proposals will be accepted through roughly the next 30 days, and the search committee at its next meeting is expected to either choose a new firm or retain AGB Search.

A draft “sample timeline” of the president search provided to the News Service shows that AGB Search projected the search committee to have finalists ready for consideration by the trustees in late March.

Rivera pointed out that identifying a date for a new president to be on the job hinges in part on the meeting schedule of the Board of Governors, which ultimately must sign off on universities’ picks.

“If the Board of Governors meets in February and June, we are not going to be ready in February and we’d have to delay until June. But, if they meet in May or April, then maybe that is something that can be accomplished,” Rivera said.

The Board of Governors has meetings scheduled in January, February, March, May and June in the first half of 2023.