While reviewing Bell\u2019s nomination by the UF Presidential Search Advisory Committee,\u00a0in accordance with\u00a0BOG regulation 1.002, Levine said he noticed \u201ca departure from BOG regulation 1.001\u201d relating to \u201cpowers and duties of trustees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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See Member Benefits<\/a>Join Our Newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSpecifically, the contract for interim UF president Dr. Don [Donald] Landry included provisions granting the trustee chairman [Mori Hosseini] sweeping authority to approve the hiring and compensation of university personnel, from the provost down to mid and lower-level unit academic and administrative unit leaders,\u201d Levine wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n UF currently has several\u00a0active dean searches<\/a>\u00a0underway across its colleges and libraries. In May, Kevin Robert Orr was named the\u00a0new dean of UF\u2019s College of Arts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe powers of chairs and trustees are limited in scope and there is no provision for a chair making personnel decisions that are within the purview of a president,\u201d Levine wrote. \u201cThis is an unusual delegation of authority to a board\u00a0member, and\u00a0appears to be non-compliant with 1.001 of our regulations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Levine said Hosseini agreed to remove this language from future contracts, \u201cwhich was an important consideration\u201d in allowing Bell to move forward as a candidate for consideration by the Board of Trustees.\u00a0<\/p>\n Levine said he asked BOG staff to conduct a preliminary review of governance at all 12 of the state\u2019s universities, where he found most institutions to be following state regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith respect to UF, while chair Hossieni agreed to remove the offending language from the president\u2019s contract, I learned through this review that elements of this language, and significant other delegations of authority, have been granted to the UF board chair which involve financial, contractual and other delegations that I feel are problematic, inconsistent with best practices in governance and which again seem to run afoul of our regulation,\u201d Levine wrote. \u201cThe fact the offending language will likely be removed from the president\u2019s contract is rendered meaningless if the university\u2019s governance standards, which are a policy of the board of trustees, remain out of compliance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Levine said that because of these concerns, he would not approve of placing any item on the BOG agenda for a university while that college is not meeting state regulations. Levine added that this\u00a0impacts\u00a0the vote on Bell and the reappointment of Florida Gulf Coast University\u2019s (FGCU) president, Dr. Aysegul Timur.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo be clear, this action should not be construed by anyone to be a statement about Dr. Bell or his candidacy,\u201d Levine wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Levine said he is prepared to call a special BOG meeting to address Bell\u2019s presidential candidacy and Timur\u2019s reappointment \u201cat such time these governance issues are resolved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Levine also asked the BOG inspector general to investigate any \u201ccredible allegation\u201d related to financial transactions and real estate at UF that could help the BOG monitor governance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rahul Patel, chair of UF\u2019s presidential search committee and vice chair of the Board of Trustees, released the following statement on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s be clear. By\u00a0Chairman\u00a0Levine\u2019s own admission, this delay has nothing to do with Dr. Bell.\u00a0A\u00a0unanimously selected presidential candidate and the State of Florida\u2019s flagship university are being drawn into a dispute unrelated to his candidacy. That is unfair to Dr. Bell and harmful to the University of Florida and the students, faculty, alumni, and supporters we are entrusted to serve. Equally\u00a0concerning\u00a0is that a decision of this\u00a0magnitude\u00a0has been made unilaterally rather than by the full Board of Governors. Delaying consideration of the unanimously approved president designate of Florida\u2019s flagship university is a consequential action that should be decided by the Board of Governors as a body, not by a single individual acting alone. The University of Florida cannot afford to remain in limbo while these matters are addressed. Accordingly, within the coming week, the Board of Trustees will meet to consider naming Dr. Bell Interim President so that the university can continue moving forward while this issue is addressed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Board of Trustees is scheduled to hold a virtual meeting at 5 p.m. on Monday. The lone item on the agenda is \u201cLeadership Transition.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The presidential search committee\u00a0unanimously recommended Bell<\/a>, former president of the University of Alabama, as the sole finalist to become UF\u2019s next president on May 18. He also received\u00a0unanimous approval<\/a>\u00a0from the Board of Trustees on June 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nick Anschultz is a Report for America corps member and writes about education for Mainstreet Daily News. This position is supported by local donations through the\u00a0Community Catalyst for Local Journalism Fund at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Board of Governors (BOG) will not consider the nomination of Dr. Stuart Bell as the University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-312816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Dr.-Stuart-R.-Bell.-Courtesy-of-UF.jpg\")
Courtesy of UF Dr. Stuart R. Bell<\/p>\n![\"Mori](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Mori-Hosseini.jpg\")
Mori Hosseini<\/p>\n