On Sunday night, the University of Florida announced that Santa J. Ono is the sole finalist after nearly a 10-month search for a permanent president. 

Rahul Patel, chair of UF’s presidential search committee, said in an email that the committee engaged in 10 listening sessions, reached out to over 100 candidates for the position and spoke with 10 sitting presidents of major research universities across the country to come to a final decision. Ono currently serves as the president of the University of Michigan, a position he has held since 2022.  

“Few moments in higher education are as exciting as this one at the University of Florida,” Ono said in the press release. “I am honored and energized to be considered for this historic opportunity.” 

The prospective president has pioneered work on the immune system and eye disease. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Association of the Advancement of Science. He serves on the American Council of Education and chairs the Council of Presidents of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.  

Ono is also a member of the United States-Japan Foundation Board of Trustees. Previously, he has served as the University of British Columbia’s 15th president, University of Cincinnati’s 28th president and Emory University’s senior vice provost. 

“If I could select a dream candidate for the University’s next president, it would be Santa Ono,” Fuchs said in the university press release. “His demonstrated record of success at the best universities, his leadership style, and caring personality have allowed him to work effectively with faculty, students, alumni, staff and other stakeholders everywhere he has been.” 

Ono dealt with several controversies while serving as president of other universities. Most recently, at Michigan in 2023, an accrediting board investigated allegations that school administrators pressured department chairs to falsify grades while graduate students were on strike over a labor dispute. He also took criticism for spending $11.5 million on renovations for the president’s mansion, a project that surpassed previous presidents by millions, according to previous reports.  

The university tapped previous UF President Kent Fuchs last year to serve as interim after President Ben Sasse unexpectedly stepped down after just 17 months on the job, citing his wife’s health problems.  

Later, reports revealed that Sasse gave former staffers six-figure salaries for remote positions and spent over a million dollars on extravagant catering, socials and tailgates.  In the year and five months Sasse served in his role, he outspent Fuchs who served as the university’s president for eight years. 

The Florida Board of Governors will make the decision on whether to appoint Ono to the position. 

Ono is scheduled to engage students, faculty and administrators as a part of a series of public forums Tuesday in Emerson Alumni Hall. The faculty forum starts at 1 p.m., the student panel at 2:15 p.m., and the administrator and staff forum at 3:30 p.m. 

The UF presidential search committee that recommended Ono operated under the same 2022 Florida law that allowed Sasse to emerge as the lone named candidate for the job that same year. But this could be the last search under that law.  

UF students and faculty criticized the law when Sasse’s appointment was being finalized, and that viewpoint has found support in the Florida Legislature. This session lawmakers filed bills to reform university presidential searches. 

One bill, HB 1321, would remove a confirmation vote by the Florida Board of Governors. Instead, only the board of trustees for the university would need to approve the new president. The bill also strikes the 2022 law that allows these searches to happen secretly, without the final slate of candidates being named.

The bill passed the Florida House 104-8 before being indefinably postponed at the very end of the session. Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would veto the bill.  

Proponents of the current law say many top candidates won’t enter a search process unless they have the protection of secrecy. They argue that the candidates often already hold key positions at other organizations and pointed to other major U.S. universities that also produced a lone recommended candidate for president.  

—Seth Johnson contributed to this story.