The Board of Governors approved Stuart Bell as the 14th president of the University of Florida.<\/p>\n
After tumultuous weeks of controversy about his appointment and years of leadership instability at Florida\u2019s flagship university, Bell was confirmed by the BOG at a special meeting at the University of South Florida on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will serve with integrity, I will serve with humility, I will serve with accountability to this group and to the board of trustees,\u201d Bell said in his opening remarks.<\/p>\n
All members present voted to confirm except for Aubrey Edge, who questioned Bell on his history of diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Alabama.<\/p>\n
During the confirmation hearing, Edge wasn\u2019t the only BOG member who asked Bell about DEI, critical race theory and free speech on campus. After Bell\u2019s confirmation, Good said several members had \u201chesitation\u201d about Bell but changed their position after speaking with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has my and all of our full support in his success,\u201d Good said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the end of a long two years for UF, which has gone through three different presidents in three years.<\/p>\n
In 2025, UF\u2019s sole finalist to become president, Santa Ono, was approved by the school\u2019s board of trustees but ran into opposition from conservative activists on the BOG who criticized his support for DEI programs while he was president of the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n
Bell, who was previously the president of the University of Alabama, has been scrutinized for the same thing by conservative online activists. However, Bell assured BOG members he was \u201cnot coming to Florida to bring DEI or \u2018woke\u2019 back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell was supposed to have been confirmed last week, but the meeting was delayed after BOG chair Alan Levine questioned \u201cgovernance issues\u201d at UF and said he would not place any university business on the agenda if they were \u201cout of compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter to State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, Levine alleged UF Board of Trustees Chair Mori Hosseini has been granted \u201cfinancial, contractual and other delegations that I feel are problematic, inconsistent with best practices in governance,\u201d and run afoul of state regulations.<\/p>\n
The move led to an explosive BOG meeting that devolved into an argument between Levine and Hosseini, with other members expressing sadness and disappointment about the controversy.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Vice Chair Timothy Cerio called the situation \u201ca little rocky journey,\u201d and BOG member Nick Sinatra thanked Bell for his \u201cgrace\u201d during the hiring process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought some of the accusations floating out around you, against you, were very much unfair,\u201d Sinatra said.<\/p>\n
Bell\u2019s tenure lasts through June 30, 2031, and he will be paid an annual base salary of $2 million, according to his employment contract, with the potential for a 3% merit increase each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Board of Governors approved Stuart Bell as the 14th president of the University of Florida. After tumultuous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-326336","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\/326336","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=326336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}