The University of Florida Board of Trustees on Tuesday appointed Stuart Bell to serve as the school’s 14th president.
The unanimous vote is the latest step in a volatile presidential search lasting two years and has already seen the State University System Board of Governors reject UF’s previous choice for president in 2025. The board still needs to approve Bell's selection.
“In everything that we do, we will serve the students, we will do the research, we will be at the cutting edge, and when people talk about who’s the best in the nation, the University of Florida will be in that conversation,” Bell said.
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Before the vote, board chairman Mori Hosseini pushed back against conservative activists who have criticized UF’s presidential search, calling out Bell for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives during his 10-year tenure as president of the University of Alabama.
“This is way too important to have your personal reason or getting paid by somebody to tweet,” Hosseini said. “Put that aside. This board is not going to give in. We're going to do the right thing.”
For his part, Bell said he won’t enact DEI programs on the Gainesville campus.
“Let me be clear. I am not coming to Florida to bring DEI or ‘woke’ back, period,” he said.
Faculty union leaders and Democratic lawmakers have condemned the presidential search process. In 2022, the state created exemptions to public records and public meetings laws for searches. Under that law, only information about finalists for presidencies is made public.
Vice Chair Rahul Patel said the search committee would have run afoul of the law if they spoke of any candidates during the process and would have resulted in less qualified candidates.
“To suggest that we and our committee needed to be more transparent would be to suggest we and our committee violate Florida law,” Patel said.
Last year the Board of Governors rejected the trustees’ recommendation to install former University of Michigan president Santa Ono as president of UF.
Ono, an immunologist, was the sole finalist to become UF president. But BOG members voted against his appointment on a 10-6 vote, questioning his avowed reversal on DEI programs, which he embraced at UM.
But former state senator and current Board of Governors member Keith Perry spoke during public comment Tuesday and supported approving Bell.
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Student leaders also spoke in support of Bell, saying he “truly” cared about students.
“I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Dr. Bell is an incredible candidate that the university would be so lucky to have, that the students would be so lucky to have,” said Blake Cox, student body president for 2025-26.
Before serving as president in Tuscaloosa, Bell served as provost and professor of engineering at Louisiana State University and as dean of the School of Engineering and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kansas.
Board members asked him questions about campus safety, specifically the safety of Jewish students, supporting the university’s academic health centers, fundraising, sports and faculty tenure.
In his comments to the board, Bell said he wants to move UF up in the rankings to become a top three public university.
“I want to take the university from being a great university to being the best university,” Bell said.
