Florida’s public colleges and universities would no longer be allowed to select their presidents in total secrecy, under proposed new legislation. State Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, filed a bill this week that would require a college or university to select three to five finalists whose names would become public. Her bill is in response to a string of recent presidential searches that resulted in only one publicly named finalist, including former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse at the University of Florida. “We would like to have more than one finalist so there’s some modicum of choice and public input for a public university president,” Polsky told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday. “If they only put forward one name, there’s no decision to be made. That means you won. The person got the job.”
