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Lawmakers again look to make university president searches secret

The move comes just after the University of South Florida was criticized for secrecy in its recent search for a president.
 
Blaise Ingoglia, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida,  gives the opening speech at the Sunshine Summit in 2015. A debate among the Republican candidates for governor of Florida will kick off this year's summit. [OCTAVIO JONES | Times]
Blaise Ingoglia, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, gives the opening speech at the Sunshine Summit in 2015. A debate among the Republican candidates for governor of Florida will kick off this year's summit. [OCTAVIO JONES | Times]
Published April 4, 2019|Updated April 4, 2019

The Florida House is again looking to make searches for college and university presidents secret, claiming that they can’t find qualified applicants.

With no debate, a Florida House committee on Thursday approved a bill doing just that despite universal opposition from about a dozen people, including some university faculty and a student.

The bill (PCB SAC 19-02) would make large portions of the search process secret.

Names of applicants would be secret. Meetings to discuss or interview applicants would be secret. The names of finalists would be made public at least 30 days before a final vote, but the names of those not chosen would never be revealed.

It’s a revival of a 2017 bill that passed in the House but failed to get a hearing in the Senate. There is not yet a Senate version of this year’s bill.

Rich Templin, director of politics and public policy for the Florida AFL-CIO, questioned why there was a need to make the search processes secret when Florida’s colleges and universities are ranked so highly and touted by top officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott.

“If we are ranked No. 1 in the nation,” he said, “what is the need for putting this in the dark? What is the need for cutting people out of this process?”

Rep. Chris Latvala, R-Clearwater, said about half the states have restrictions on college president searches.

House State Affairs Committee Chair Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, whose committee introduced the bill, said it wasn’t because the state wasn’t finding enough good people.

“What we’re saying is we’re just trying to protect the process," he said. "The idea is not to put them at a disadvantage compared to what other states are doing.”

But why the bill is coming up halfway through this year’s Legislative session, when some committees have already stopped meeting, is unclear.

“The timing really doesn’t mean anything," Ingoglia said. "It’s just a bill that the House believes needs to be done.”

Even without the bill, the University of South Florida was recently criticized for using private recruiters to avoid releasing information about their search.

And there is another big presidential search currently underway, at Miami-Dade College, the nation’s largest post-secondary institution. DeSantis recently chose to overhaul the membership on the college’s Board of Trustees.