Florida Atlantic University should restart its presidential search, and Trustee Chairman Brad Levine should not lead it.
Those are the recommendations from an investigation into the search by Julie Leftheris, the State University System’s inspector general. She submitted the 42-page report today. It goes to the Board of Governors, which will meet next Thursday. That meeting had not been posted on the board’s website until today.
The board almost certainly will approve Leftheris’ recommendations. She hedges the second one by saying that the board “should consider whether” Levine “should be prohibited from serving as the chair” of the next search. But Leftheris concluded that the search—with Levine as chair—violated Florida’s open-meeting law and a Board of Governors rule. Based on comments since Chancellor Ray Rodrigues suspended the search on July 7, the board will blame Levine.
That rule violation stems from a commentary that search committee member Richard Schmidt wrote for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. According to the report, Levine, General Counsel David Kian and Vice President of Public Affairs Peter Hull assisted in the writing and distribution of the article.
In it, Schmidt—whose family foundation is the largest private donor to FAU—defended the search after Rodrigues suspended it. Leftheris thus claims that Levine’s involvement broke the non-disclosure agreement that search committee members had signed. Under that agreement, only Levine was allowed to speak for the search committee.
Leftheris also faults the committee’s use of a straw poll and a questionnaire about sexual orientation that the search firm sent to the applicants. She further claims that Levine withheld from other committee members information that came to him from the search firm.
Where does this leave FAU? For the time being, with Interim President Stacy Volnick. FAU’s faculty senate has proposed making Volnick the permanent president—she’s had the interim title for almost a year—but there was not consensus among the trustees to do so.
The previous search committee took seven months to decide on those finalists. As trustee chairman, Levine still would be able to appoint members of a new committee. There will be renewed speculation that Gov. DeSantis and/or his allies already have a preferred candidate. The governor also could decide to remove Levine from the board of trustees.
I’ll have more in my Tuesday post.