Monday’s choice of Adam Hasner to be Florida Atlantic University’s next president was no surprise. It aligns with the recent trend of higher education in Florida. Just consider what happened Friday.
At a special meeting with little notice and some members absent, Florida International University’s trustees declined to extend the three-year contract of President Ken Jessell and chose Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez as interim president. In doing so, the trustees picked politics over performance.
Under Jessell, FIU in 2024 scored highest among Florida’s 12 public universities in the metrics that determine what the Board of Governors (BOG) calls “performance funding.” In 2023, after just one year with Jessell in charge, FIU had moved up eight places in the U.S. News Best College rankings that the BOG prizes.
But Jessell lacks what under Gov. Ron DeSantis has become the most important qualification to be a college president in Florida: He’s not a former Republican member of the Legislature.
Nunez is. So is Hasner. End of discussion.
FAU’s trustees made a good show of it Monday as they interviewed the finalists. They engaged with Michael Hartline— who also was a finalist in the first search—and John Volin. They also praised the two men even as they cast their votes for Hasner.
To pick Hasner, trustees had to ignore that he has no experience in higher education. To compensate, they talked about how state money—notably to create the medical school—came to FAU when Hasner represented this area in the Florida House between 2002 and 2010. They talked about how FAU needs money now to raise teacher salaries.
But that experience gap showed itself during the interviews. Asked how he would choose a permanent provost —the chief academic officer—Hasner was vague beyond saying that he wants a national search. Asked to name tough positions he had taken, Hasner listed none. He recalled “knocking on 10,000 doors” during his first campaign. He pledged to be “very communicative.”
It was a rerun of the forum Hasner held Friday before faculty members. Rather than lay out a plan for running the university, Hasner spoke of receiving a “Mr. FAU” football jersey. In all forums, Hasner sounded like a student trying to pad his answer to an essay test question.
In contrast, Hartline and Volin listed example after example of having already accomplished things Hasner pledged to do. Hartline and Volin each has 30-plus year of relevant experience, rising from teaching to management.
Hartline, for example, has raised $240 million for the business school. Asked about the need to address students’ mental health, Hartline talked about how he has worked to “shrink the size of the campus” and give each student an identity. Some trustees want FAU to better economically leverage its research. Hartline has done that at FSU, where he is dean of the business school.
Volin provided his own example of solving the problem of faculty retention. At the University of Maine, the idea was finding a job for the spouse or partner of a professor who had a good offer elsewhere. According to Volin, in a recent survey of R1 institutions—those classified as having the highest level of research activity—Maine ranked second in partner hires. Volin also spent 22 years at FAU, from 1995 to 2017.
Since Hartline was a finalist for the second time, he would have been the logical choice. Several months ago, however, I heard that Hasner was the governor’s pick. I can’t repeat too often that the state suspended, and later voided, the first search after the committee didn’t make the governor’s choice a finalist.
Hasner will become the fifth former GOP legislator in the last 16 months to become a Florida college president.
Trustee Vice Chair Sherry Murphy said at the start that this would be a “transparent” search. It was, though not in the way she intended. We could see from the start how it would end.
FAU students protest Hasner presidency
Friday displayed another aspect of how the choice of Hasner is, and likely will remain, controversial beyond the lack of relevant experience.
Students demonstrated outside the Student Union against hiring someone from GEO Group, the Boca Raton-based company that is the country’s second-largest operator of private prisons and detention centers. GEO’s checkered corporate reputation killed the company’s 2013 attempt to acquire naming rights to FAU’s football stadium.
Hasner’s worst moment Friday came when a questioner noted that President Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportation would separate families. That plan would be good for GEO, the questioner said, “But would it be good for us?” Sustained applause followed.
Hasner tried to defend GEO by calling the company “a proxy for public policy debates.” GEO, Hasner said, merely carries out contracts that public officials approve.
In fact, GEO lobbies heavily to put certain officials in place to approve contracts that GEO wants. Here’s one example.
Joe Negron is GEO’s corporate counsel. In 2016, when Negron was president of the Florida Senate, GEO gave $270,000 to Negron’s leadership committee. GEO gave another $100,000 to Negron’s wife when she ran for Congress. It was return on investment. In 2012, Negron voted for a bill that would have privatized the entire state prison system. In 2015, he opposed part of a bill that would have made it easier to punish those who work at prisons. As president in 2017, Negron put an extra $3 million in the budget for GEO. A year later, the budget contained $4 million to increase pay of private prison employees.
And now Hasner will get his return. Pablo Paez, GEO’s executive vice president for corporate relations, is an FAU trustee. He also served on the search committee.
During discussion of how much the new president would make, consensus had settled on a range of between $700,000 and $800,000. But Paez pushed for a package of between $1 million and $1.5 million. So, an untested president will get as much or more than the president of Florida State University, who has been on the job since 2021.
Boca downtown campus bidders give another round of presentations
On Monday, Boca Raton allowed bidders on the downtown redevelopment plan a second, shorter round of presentation before the city council.
Not much new emerged from the first, longer round two weeks ago. Related Ross, however, indicated that it could lower its amount of office space, which is nearly four times larger than any other bidder. Namdar said it could drop the number of apartments, which at 8,000 was almost eight times higher than any other bidder.
But a city spokeswoman was unable to tell me why the city scheduled a second round when bidders supposedly had prepared their “best and final” offers previously. And the city still has not disclosed the method council members will use when they rank the bidders at tonight’s meeting.
The extra time gave Related Ross a chance to have several residents show up and speak on behalf of the company’s proposal. The speakers echoed Related Ross’s pitch that the office-heavy plan will draw jobs.
Boca to review two new northwest developments
Two major projects in northwest Boca Raton are on the agenda for tonight’s regular council meeting.
One is redevelopment of the 29-acre Office Depot headquarters at 6600 N. Military Trail. An entity consisting of Pebb Enterprises, BH Group and Related (not the downtown bidder) bought the property in 2024 for $104 million.
Under the proposal, the company would tear down 245,000 square feet of office space on the south side of the site. In its place would go an eight-story, 500-unit residential building and 43,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
Redevelopment would take place in four phases. After the demolition would come the retail and restaurant portion, a “fitness and wellness facility” and then the apartments. The community appearance and planning and zoning boards unanimously recommended approval. So does the staff. The fitness center would be Equinox, which Related owns.
The other proposal is for a seven-story, 287-unit apartment at 1150 N.W. Broken Sound Parkway. It would go next to the existing office building. The planning and zoning board unanimously recommended approval. So does the staff.
Each proposal was submitted under the new Commercial Industrial Multifamily Development designation. It allows residential projects in areas where previous rules prevented it. In recent years, more residential has gone into northwest Boca Raton, which for decades had been office-dominated.
Final approval for BRiC redevelopment on city agenda
Also on tonight’s agenda is final approval of the change to allow redevelopment of the former IBM campus—another step toward a new era for northwest Boca Raton.
CP Group wants to add residential and much more to the 124-acre site south of Yamato Road and just west of Interstate 95. The plan has emerged over more than three years, beginning with discussions between the company and city officials.
What emerged is a new land-use category that would apply only to the property, now known as the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC). One requirement is being near the Tri-Rail station, since mobility is key to allowing the new development. CP Group hopes to make the campus more of a draw to corporate tenants, especially tech startups.
Because the new designation is a change to the city’s comprehensive plan, it had to go through state review after the first public hearing before the council. The state had no objection. Tonight is the second required hearing.
