Dear Members of the USF Community,
As members of the Board of Trustees, we have been blessed to work directly with Fr. Paul Fitzgerald for much of his past decade of service to the university. We are grateful for how Fr. Fitzgerald has advanced and shepherded USF over the past 10 years, and will miss him when he leaves office at the end of this calendar year.
We are honored to serve as co-chairs of the Presidential Search Committee (PSC) (composed of current and former trustees; members are listed below), and will work closely with the USF community in an open and inclusive search to identify the 29th president of the university.
Board Chair Jack Boland stated in his message last week that two of our most important responsibilities are to inform members of our community — including students, faculty, librarians, staff, alumni, and friends of USF — about the presidential search procedures, and to report on our progress. Therefore, please watch for periodic messages from us in the weeks and months ahead.
As Jack Boland also wrote, the PSC will recommend a finalist to the Board of Trustees for its consideration. To ensure that the USF community has a voice in this critical decision, we will depend on the Search Advisory Committee (SAC), which is now in formation.
We are delighted to report that the SAC will be co-chaired by Eileen Fung, provost and vice president of academic affairs, and Mary Del Santo, vice chair of the Board of Trustees. The committee membership will include representatives from faculty, librarians, staff, the Jesuit community, students, alumni, and other stakeholder groups. The membership will be announced shortly. This committee will have a vital role in the search process, and will be responsible for facilitating listening sessions, synthesizing feedback from all constituents, and communicating this feedback to the PSC.
Thanks to Fr. Fitzgerald and all of you, USF is well-positioned to attract a deep pool of strong candidates from across the nation. We are confident that a thorough and transparent search process — one that draws on the collective wisdom of our community — will successfully bring us another outstanding president to lead our university.
We look forward to working with you in service of USF’s future.
Sincerely,
John F. Nicolai
Co-Chair, Presidential Search Committee
Jeff Silk
Co-Chair, Presidential Search Committee
Presidential Search Committee
Co-Chairs:
- John F. Nicolai
- Jeff Silk
Membership:
- Joseph Allanson
- Jack Boland
- Mary M. Del Santo
- Rev. Michael Engh, S.J.
- Judy C. Miner
- Lindbergh Porter
- Karen Rose
- Nora Wu
Advisor to PSC:
- Rev. Michael J. Garanzini, S.J.
- President, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities