Florida Board of Governors approves Stuart Bell as UF President

In a 15-1 vote, the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) approved Stuart Bell to be the new President of the University of Florida.

“I know that the greatest chapter, the greatest time ahead for Florida is yet ahead,” Bell told the BOG as he spoke about a goal to make UF the best public school in the country.

“I will serve with integrity. I will serve with humility. I will serve with accountability for this group and to my Board of Trustees.”

The state’s higher education board voted to confirm the hiring of Bell, who previously led the University of Alabama, during a meeting Wednesday. It gives Florida’s flagship school its first permanent leader in two years.

“I sense there’s a hunger for leadership. There’s a hunger for this direction,” Bell said.

Governor Aubrey Edge, CEO of First Coast Energy, was the lone vote of opposition and raised concerns that Bell supported diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Addressing the criticisms, Bell said, “I want to be very clear and maybe we can set this aside: I’m not coming to Florida to bring DEI or woke back to the state of Florida.”

Bell’s background is in mechanical engineering.

In academia, his career included work as Louisiana State University Provost and the Dean of Engineering at the University of Kansas.

UF has struggled to find a permanent leader since UF President Ben Sasse resigned in 2024.

UF sought to hire University of Michigan President Santa Ono in 2025, but the BOG opposed Ono getting the job, as elected officials criticized Ono for being too liberal and supporting DEI.

For a moment, Bell’s hiring seemed in jeopardy. 

UF’s push to hire Bell drew ire from U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, who slammed UF for naming Bell as its lone finalist in a hiring process he said kept the public in the dark.

Scott was also critical of UF overlooking interim President Donald Landry, who would be entitled to receive $2 million in severance if he wasn’t named the permanent President.

BOG Chair Alan Levine also raised concerns about whether University of Florida Chair Mori Hosseini overstepped his authority in the presidential hiring.

Bell’s new contract through June 30, 2031, will pay him an average annual salary of $2.4 million, the Gainesville Sun reported.

“Maintaining excellence is hard. Advancing it is even harder. From the very beginning, our board of trustees and our search committee understood that we were not simply looking for an administrator. We were looking for a leader, someone who could build on this foundation,” Hosseini said Wednesday. “We found that leader in Dr. Stuart Bell.”