• The Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) Board of Trustees has approved a search timeline for its ongoing presidential search.
• The university plans to present a president-elect to the Florida Board of Governors for confirmation on May 10th, with a start date of July 1st.
• The search was reopened on Nov. 17th after two of the three named finalists withdrew from consideration, forcing FGCU to re-launch its candidate nomination process.

The Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) Board of Trustees approved a timeline on Thursday for its ongoing presidential search that delineates a plan to present a president-elect to the Florida Board of Governors for confirmation on May 10th, with a start date of July 1st.

The new search timeline outlines the positional nomination process, which is set to take place across the remainder of February and March, with a penultimate candidate review meeting held by the Presidential Search Committee on March 24th. The review meeting will select candidates for semifinalist interviews and discusses interview strategies.

The semifinalist interviews will occur between April 4th and 6th before a series of stakeholder forums are held on the university campus between April 17th and 26th.

Final interviews are planned for May 1st, with a subsequent president-elect receiving confirmation nine days later.

The Board of Trustees also approved the university’s presidential profile, which lists the desired qualifications of candidates as strong academic leadership experience, understanding of major fundraising initiatives, and strategic legislative relations.

The profile also describes strategic priorities that the university believes are necessary for its eventual hire. Such priorities include building a strategic vision, strengthening philanthropic development, and academic improvement.

“A key priority for the president will be to work with external constituencies to generate the resources FGCU needs to deliver on its mission and expand its operations and enhance its profile,” the university wrote in its profile.

The FGCU Board of Trustees decided to reopen its presidential candidate search on Nov. 17th after two of the three named finalists — Tod A. Laursen, Acting President of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and Susana V. Rivera-Mills, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Ball State University — withdrew from consideration in early November.

Consequentially, the lone remaining finalist in FGCU’s search, Robert G. Gregerson, withdrew from consideration, leaving the university back at square one.

Gable stated during the Nov. 17th meeting that the university seeks to explore “as wide a pool of candidates as possible,” effectively restarting the process.

In the meantime, outgoing President Mike Martin stated that he would prolong his service to the school until a successor is adequately chosen.

When the school publicly launched its search in June it claimed that interest among candidates was high, garnering between 20 and 30 potential successors to Martin. It is currently unclear whether FGCU will circle back to some of the candidates originally considered that did not make the list of finalists, or if an entirely new slate of individuals will be brought in.