University of Florida President Ben Sasse announces resignation
Press release from University of Florida
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – University of Florida President Ben Sasse announced today that he will resign from his current position as President effective July 31, 2024 and has asked the Board to initiate a search for a new president. Sasse has served nearly two years as president after becoming the university’s 13th president appointed in November 2022.
“My wife Melissa’s recent epilepsy diagnosis and a new batch of memory issues have been hard, but we’re facing it together,” said President Sasse. “Our two wonderful daughters are in college, but our youngest is just turning 13. Gator Nation needs a president who can keep charging hard, Melissa deserves a husband who can pull his weight, and my kids need a dad who can be home many more nights. I need to step back and rebuild more stable household systems for a time. I’m going to remain involved in serving our UF students — past, present, and future — but I need to walk arm-in-arm with my dearest friend more hours of every week.”
“The Board of Trustees thanks Dr. Sasse for his service to the University of Florida. Under his leadership, UF has continued to advance on the national and international stage, benefiting our students, faculty, alumni, community and state. He has left a lasting impact on the university and all of those associated with it. We wish Ben all the best as he steps back to focus on his family,” said Mori Hosseini, chair of the Board of Trustees.
The Board will work quickly and thoughtfully to announce an interim president and lay the foundation for the search for a new President. The Board will engage the UF community every step of the way.
It is to bad that his wife is suffering from epilepsy and memory issues. It is very understanding that he needs to tend to his family. Even though he is new to UF, he and his ideas will be missed.
Sasse and his ideas will not be missed. And, no, this isn’t a “right vs left” kind of thing. He is woefully unqualified to lead an academic institution the size of UF. He made disastrous decisions about funding and other major initiatives that the university will take years to recover from.
Hopefully the UF BOT learned a lesson with their experiment of bringing in a politician (and his large, highly-paid posse) with almost zero academic leadership background. He’d been the president of a small college with about 5,000 students. What could go wrong?
I am sorry about his wife and hope that her health improves. But he will not be missed.
Strongly disagree. Sasse brought a fresh, “think outside the box” perspective to UF and higher education as a whole. His proposals challenged and expanded the boundaries of learning, assessment, and measurement.
I for one am saddened that we will not see the transformative outcomes of his continued leadership, but I understand and respect his decision to put the needs of his family first.
Very hard for many people to balance the work/life situation. I CHOOSE to work no more than 37 hours a week. Work is not life. Work is a TOOL that you may use to enable a better life.
The UF President is highly paid, he could easily afford all the help that his wife and nearly adult children might need, better than he can contribute personally. Probably he hates the job and wants out, I can’t blame him, given the poisonous faculty, medusan administration and infantile student body.
Yeah, UF is a top 10 public university in spite of it’s faculty and students and solely because of it’s president.
Sorry about his family situation but this guy was on Fox news more than on campus. I had hopes for him as a serious and principled person even as I recognized I would often not agree with his principles. He showed little of any principles unfortunately and let the Governor and legislature interfere with the excellent institution which was his charge and his domain and without a whimper of protest.
What the state GOP is doing to New College – they are trashing a true asset of the state which was at the top of rankings for liberal arts colleges – they are doing at UF and the other state universities and it is unprecedented political meddling and power grab driven by right wing ideology – same as the public schools. Sasse welcomed that or at least did nothing to stand up to it.
It was your turf Ben! Stand up for it!
Sasse never had any interest in being the UF president. He needed a lifeline out of the senate because he voted to convict Trump after Jan 6 and wasn’t going to be re-elected in Nebraska.
His lack of experience, insight, leadership and basic human kindness took a rapid toll on our great university. He and his circle of advisors pillaged assets, and consistently made knee-jerk decisions about things they didn’t know enough about to know they didn’t know enough.
Completely unqualified – all of them. Stunningly overpaid – all of them. Will not be missed – any of them.
Not a fan, sounds like many, if not most, in city leadership. Then again, if people had to have experience in a certain job prior to performing that job, there would be a lot more panhandlers working the medians and that’s something we don’t need.
Maybe that’s why we see the same people working the streets, it’s not that they’re lazy and don’t want to work – they just lack the experience. Yeah, right.
Wonder if city leaders would be willing to resign? Probably not, along with their lack of experience, they also lack the integrity.
Sounds quite a bit like the former SBAC Superintendent, except she spent her time on CNN and every other far-left leaning medium that would give her a microphone.
Yes, it’s the faculty, staff & students who make UF what it is, and it’s those individuals who either make or break any institution.
Things like this can be deeply personal.
Twice in my life I’ve had to make choices that were not great.
I turned down three massive overseas contracts to stand by family. The tax free type that would have fixed my family’s future forever.
Money, is not everything. It sure helps. But “manning up” when your wife needs you is an obligation. You make that promise in front of God and everyone you know.
can’t buy a father though.
Unless you profit from DEI or are a Palestinian/Hamas fanboy, there’s no reason to think he did anything other than a fine job. UF is ranked #1 in more than one publication now. I can’t think of any scandals he caused or any reason not to like him. Not a Sasse Fan sounds just as ignorant as can be.
UF’s climb in the rankings comes from decades of effort, not Sasse’s largely absent presence for 2 years, and the state GOP – with Sasse’s compliance – was responsible for the political meddling in the state’s largely excellent academic institutions. Faculty that are at the top of their field now have a large reason to not choose UF for their next job because of the bullying of faculty and departments – see coercion of them on Ladapo hiring and forced endorsement of new Great Books college and ending of tenure control. Many of the top of their field academics already here are looking for the door.
Sasse – as a Senator – had the stature and chops to stand up to this (he wasn’t here for Ladapo) and he had the pretense of being a serious moral person, but exercised none of that and let the dogs loose, while posturing on Fox news. Good riddance, but don’t count on an improvement hiring with this all-DeSantis Board of Trustees. These guys are trashing valuable state property and a deserved reputation others earned.
Not correct. Going anti-woke has caused UF to rise in the recent rankings. Bernie Machen might as well have been created in a test tube by Klaus Schwab. Every president since him has been anti-woke, especially Sasse. I’m sure the trend will continue, obviously.
BS
National Universities 2024 Best Colleges Overall Ranking Criteria and Weights
Indicator
2024 National Universities Weight for Schools With Usable SAT/ACT
2024 National Universities Weight for Schools Without Usable SAT/ACT
2022-2023 Weight
Graduation rates
16%
21%
17.6%
First-year retention rates
5%
5%
4.4%
Graduation rate performance
10%
10%
8%
Pell graduation rates
3%
3%
2.5%
Pell graduation performance
3%
3%
2.5%
First generation graduation rates
2.5%
2.5%
0%
First generation graduation rate performance
2.5%
2.5%
0%
Borrower debt
5%
5%
3%
College grads earning more than a high school grad
5%
5%
0%
Peer assessment
20%
20%
20%
Faculty salaries
6%
6%
7%
Student-faculty ratio
3%
3%
1%
Full-time faculty
2%
2%
1%
Financial resources per student
8%
8%
10%
Standardized tests
5%
0%
5%
Citations per publication
1.25%
1.25%
0%
Field weighted citation impact
1.25%
1.25%
0%
Publications cited in top 5% of journals
1%
1%
0%
Publications cited in top 25% of journals
0.5%
0.5%
0%
Class size
0%
0%
8%
Terminal degree faculty
0%
0%
3%
Alumni giving average
0%
0%
3%
Graduate debt proportion borrowing
0%
0%
2%
High school class standing
0%
0%
2%
TOTAL
100%
100%
100%
Many of the top of their field academics are looking? What’s holding them back? There’s a multitude of employment opportunities and as you and others mention, DeSantis is making Florida unlivable.
Don’t really need an answer, actions speak far more than words.
At least the Board of Trustees got that other group out of there that brought in over 5 thousand Chinese instead of letting qualified legacy students into the university. Can’t say more or post will be blocked,
“Approximately 9 in 10 doctorates from Iran (92%), India (88%), and China (87%), planned to remain in the United States after graduation. With the exception of Thailand (28%), the remaining top countries had stay rates ranging from 50% to 65%, and the overall stay rate for all countries other than these top 10 was 64% ….”
Yeah, good work there Board of Trustees and DeSantis. We don’t need no stinkin’ smart people trying to horn in on the university spaces meant for Beauregard P. Suggs’s son! We need real estate salesmen, not scientists.
https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17306/report/international-students-staying-overall-trends/stay-rates-country-of-origin.cfm#:~:text=Approximately%209%20in%2010%20doctorates,these%20top%2010%20was%2064%25%20.
Of course it would be better if we had more qualified Americans to fill those graduate programs. The Asian grad students here are not necessarily very smart but they likely have better self-discipline and work harder. That’s what is missing here. Teaching that is “too wight!” Keep your kids away from the Kodak haircut culture, obviously. It is the direct opposite of a Chinese student who studies 8 hours a day and stays home and goes to sleep at night.
Dust off that dei building sign and get ready to reinstall it. Oh, and uf might as well mark off camping tent plots on the plaza becuase the free palestine folks will be moving in to stay.
Heartbreaking to see you go Ben!
Thankful all DEI (and similar programs) are illegal in Florida – thank you Governor!
We will miss Ben Sasse at UF! I appreciate his diversity of thought approach to academia. He’s done a good job beginning to turn the tide at UF away from DEI to merit and qualifications.
His dedication to his family fits with the character we have seen in his leadership – doing the right thing for his family is what I would have expected.
I am thankful for his service, and am praying for his wife and family.
That’s false.
“UF has not considered the race of students since 1999. Instead, the university uses a holistic review process that considers all aspects of a student’s application, background and qualifications when making admissions decisions, Parker said…
Only 5.5% of students enrolled at UF in Fall 2022 identified their ethnicity as Black. While UF undergraduate Black student applications reached a record high during the Fall 2022 admissions cycle, admission and enrollment rates for Black students have remained the same over the last 10 years.”
https://www.alligator.org/article/2023/10/uf-black-student-enrollment-remains-stagnant-despite-increase-in-applicants
That’s false.
“UF has not considered the race of students since 1999. Instead, the university uses a holistic review process that considers all aspects of a student’s application, background and qualifications when making admissions decisions, Parker said…
Only 5.5% of students enrolled at UF in Fall 2022 identified their ethnicity as Black. While UF undergraduate Black student applications reached a record high during the Fall 2022 admissions cycle, admission and enrollment rates for Black students have remained the same over the last 10 years.”
https://www.alligator.org/article/2023/10/uf-black-student-enrollment-remains-stagnant-despite-increase-in-applicants
The “Alligator”? May as well be getting your news from Rachel Maddow or Joy Behar.
Now they place much weight on whether it’s an in-state or out-of-state student…$$$.
That’s capitalism.
The articles sources it’s data. You haven’t.
Real life – that’s my source. Try that instead of your fantasy land.
Doofus, the source is UF. You think they are lying about having steady 5% black enrollment for 10 years or that they haven’t use race as a metric – the claim is that UF is WOKE U and that data clearly shoots that down.
I never said they didn’t have a steady 5%. I said they take out of state students over in state because it’s more money for them.
You’ve got to be the biggest ass licker & richard sucker who posts comments here. Enjoy breakfast tomorrow, I hear they serve up a pretty sloppy breakfast downtown – lots of gravy.
Want to know my source – you.
Wrong again – and irrelevant to the issue.
“As of June 2024, the University of Florida’s (UF) acceptance rate for out-of-state applicants is 19%, which is much lower than the 59% acceptance rate for in-state applicants….
“Many public universities have increased their out-of-state enrollment in recent years. In 2022, 12 flagship universities enrolled more out-of-state freshmen than in-state students. Some public universities with high percentages of out-of-state students include:
University of Wisconsin — Madison: 42%
Grambling State University: 41%
Virginia Military Institute: 41%
Alabama State University: 40%
Mississippi State University: 40%”
Ouch! I used to write for them back in the 1990s.
Jazz, at one time UF asked your religious preference.
A friend of mine said, “Druid.”
He was later told that he was welcome to worship with the other 14 druids at UF.
We always thought that was a rather curious response from UF. 🙂
What period of time? I don’t remember if I was or not but it was a long time ago.
What a Man, he is placing his family first, I would bet he is a Christian, I hope he is anyway. May the Good Lord bless him and his family, they are in my prayers.
Guess that $4.5 million that was paid to McKinsey was even more of a waste now. Also, don’t all presidents get tenure? I wonder if Ben will accept that, given that he is in no way actually qualified for tenure at UF….
While I am sad to hear about his wife, there is more to the story. Another local news outlet stated that Sasse resigned during a “fraught” relationship with Mori Hossani. THAT fraught is the real reason. So what happens now to the already approved reorg in the Office of the Provost that was to be announced shortly? What about Sasse’s ppl that he hired (who work remotely) or came with him to Gainesville? Now Fuchs is interim again? Ugh…. Welcome back to the DEI dribble.
The next prez should be as effective squashing SMC Antifa commies and their name-changing ilk on campus, in the future. That’s the only qualification, to purge commies from American colleges. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
CMC Antifa
“Sasse largely spent his 17-month term as UF president, the shortest of any non-interim president in the university’s history, behind the scenes. In his first six months, he made few public appearances and refused to speak with The Alligator and other news outlets….
Sasse also oversaw an overhaul of university leadership, which included the hiring of former Senate staffers and longtime friends to top positions. In June 2023, Sasse tapped his longtime friend and political donor William Inboden to lead the Hamilton Center, UF’s state-mandated civic center which is tasked with teaching students about “Western canon.” ….”
Hit the road Ben.
By the way, his contract required him to give 6 months notice and he said he will continue to teach (the “Western Canon” school run by his old buddy). Hopefully he has to pay back most of his salary.
🥤…
I’d like to see a UF president with a last name easily pronounceable. I’m done with trying to mumble through Fuchs and Sasse…