Thad Seymour, who was a key player the development of Lake Nona’s Medical City and has overseen the new UCF campus expected to open in downtown Orlando this August, is poised to lead the university for at least a year until trustees pick a new president.
Thad Seymour, who has been guiding UCF for the past month after overseeing the planned downtown Orlando campus is poised to lead the university for at least a year until trustees pick a new president.
Trustees will decide Thursday whether Seymour should be the University of Central Florida’s interim president on a long-term basis while they search for a successor to Dale Whittaker, who resigned Feb. 21 amid controversy over construction spending. Also Thursday, trustees are scheduled to vote on a $600,000 settlement with Whittaker.
Seymour has been in charge of UCF since Whittaker’s departure, but trustees initially said they intended for him to provide short-term leadership — maybe a few months — while they searched for someone else to fill the interim role for a longer period. But Seymour has “provided much-needed stability and leadership” over the past several weeks, Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Garvy said in a university press release, so it appears likely he’ll stay on longer.
If Garvy’s colleagues agree, Seymour would be in line for a significant raise — his annual salary would grow from $300,000 to $506,000, the same annual salary as Whittaker, who held the post for less than eight months, according to the proposed contract.
Seymour reiterated Wednesday that he won’t pursue the presidency on a full-time basis. Trustees plan to start a presidential search in the fall, with the goal of the new leader starting in June or July 2020.
Previously the university’s vice president for partnerships and chief innovation officer, Seymour, 63, has worked for UCF since fall 2015.
Most recently, he has been responsible for the downtown campus, slated to open in August. Seymour, 63, previously led planning, marketing and busi­ness development for Lake Nona’s Medical City as the senior vice president for the Tavistock Development Company. He retired from Tavistock in 2015, the same year he was hired at UCF.
In addition to the trustees’ vote, Seymour’s appointment is subject to approval from the Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system. They could take up the matter during their next meeting on March 28.
Exclusive Orlando Sentinel coverage of the misappropriation of $38 million funds to the construction of Trevor Colbourn Hall, the subsequent investigation and the resignation of UCF President Dale Whittaker.
As for the proposed agreement with Whittaker, a university’s press release justified the cost of the settlement by saying as a president, he was also a tenured professor and entitled a buyout of the present value of that tenure. According to Whittaker’s contract, if he resigned from the university’s top post, he could remain on campus as a faculty member while earning 85 percent of his president’s salary.
By approving the settlement, Garvy said trustees are avoiding a potential lawsuit from Whittaker.
“If Whittaker sued UCF, we could be engaged in a legal battle with our former president for a year or more, paying lawyers to fight over this matter, while disrupting our effort to advance the university with new leadership,” Garvy said, according to the university release.
UCF is also obliged to pay for Whittaker’s legal defense if any former employees sue UCF in connection with their termination from the university while Whittaker was president. Four employees were told they could resign or be fired because of their involvement in the university’s misspending. At least two of them are challenging their termination through an appeals process at the university.
Whittaker couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday. The university release said he had accepted the agreement.
The Board of Governors is still probing the matter.
Trustees also will consider stopping performance bonus payments to Whittaker’s predecessor, John Hitt, who retired June 30 after 26 years at the university’s helm.
Though Hitt refused to sit for a deposition with staffers for the House Committee for Public Integrity and Ethics, their investigation found he and former university Chief Financial Officer Bill Merck dismissed legal restrictions on leftover operating dollars. Hitt couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
Stopping Hitt’s performance bonuses would save the UCF Foundation more than $300,000, according to trustees’ meeting agenda materials. Trustees voted in January to strip two years’ worth of bonus payments, valued at tens of thousands of dollars, from Merck and Whittaker.