FSU faculty on high alert

FSU's 'good ole boy' BS is in play right now with the FSU presidential search and the FSU faculty knows it....as does EVERYONE else.

It is just some folks trying to PRETEND FSU is doing a search.  They aren't.  They are purposely trying to scare away legit candidates to allow the good ole boys to bring in John Thrasher.

Really a sad situation for FSU.

I'll go on record as saying Thrasher would be a total joke hire and a bitter pill I would only be willing to swallow if he gets FSU's it's own College of Engeering......and even then it sucks.


FSU faculty on high alert

"There was a palpable tension in the air last week as Florida State University’s presidential search panel held its initial session with the high-profile head hunter FSU hired in late March.

There are five faculty members on the 27-person committee. They were joined by a half-dozen or so of their colleagues, associate and assistant professors from FSU’s various colleges. They represented the bulk of the visitors at the meeting, and they were responsible for almost all of the public comments to open the web-cast session.

Not one of them said directly that they were worried about the direction the search might take, but their body language and even their comments said so loudly and clearly.

The rumors that state Sen. John Thrasher is the leading candidate to fill the vacancy left by Eric Barron’s unexpected departure to Penn State is the subject of constant conversation at FSU – and at select watering holes around town. One professor talked to me candidly about Thrasher’s chances of getting a majority of FSU’s trustees to endorse his candidacy – which hasn’t even been declared. Thrasher would need seven votes, and this professor said he counted no more than four, possibly five, trustees who would raise their hands in favor of a Thrasher presidency.

The faculty members made it clear during last week’s meeting that they want another individual with solid academic chops, similar to what Barron brought to Westcott’s second floor.

The faculty was re-energized during Barron’s four years as FSU’s CEO. While their pay still lags behind the national average, as it does at every public university in the state, FSU’s professors felt that in Barron they had someone who talked their talk, that the shared governance model was more than a catch phrase.

The professors who aren’t on the search committee – Nancy Rogers, Jennifer Proffitt and Michael Buchler – told the panel that they want a president much like the one they just lost.

“Anyone else would send the wrong message,” Rogers, from the College of Music, said.

Buchler, also from the music school, came the closest to saying Thrasher’s name (or T.K. Wetherell’s, the one-time politician who preceded Barron as FSU president). “There are problems with politicians,” he said.

When Trustee Ed Burr, chair of the search committee, asked if anyone had any comments on the 16-point list of credentials that would constitute the profile of their top candidates, the faculty was eager to weigh in. Eric Walker, chair of the English department who was also on the search committee that recommended Barron to FSU’s board, immediately introduced the 12-point list of credentials that were used in 2009 as a substitute for the draft document.

The No. 1 quality on that list: “Distinguished intellectual stature with strong academic credentials, proven leadership abilities, and a successful record in senior management.”

After a 10-minute study period, the committee voted unanimously to use the 2009 list – the one that produced only men from academia as finalists – with a few additions from the original list.

Funk, FSU’s head hunter for the search, told the group he understood the desire for someone who comes from an elite university, but he also did not want to eliminate anyone as the search gets under way. If the president of Ford Motor Co. wants to apply, Funk said, he wanted the committee to have an opportunity to review his credentials.

That left some of the professors in the room more than a little nervous. I don’t believe that there is a move afoot by Burr or the board to make Thrasher FSU’s next president. But I don’t blame faculty members for monitoring the search carefully. And constantly."