Miami Dade College’s board grapples with transparency in search to find new president

The Miami Dade College Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a new presidential profile, search committee and timeline to ensure a transparent process, it said, and restore the community’s faith in the board to find its next college president.

Yet none of those items were outlined in the board’s public agenda or made available to the public ahead of time.

There was a push to include preservation of Miami’s iconic Freedom Tower as a “professional pillar” in the presidential profile. Yet the trustee who started that discussion, Marcell Felipe, has held hopes that the Freedom Tower is a future home to a Cuban museum he currently chairs.

Another surprise from the meeting: The announcement of the resignation of trustee Benjamin Leon III, opening a sixth (out of seven) trustee slot for the governor to appoint and another possible board shake-up in the middle of the presidential search.

These are the latest dramatic twists in the rebooted search to find a successor to Eduardo J. Padron, who stepped down after 24 years of leading the nation’s largest college. The new timeline aims to start the next president in July.

Felipe, who called into the meeting, said he took issue with the presidential profile. He cited statistics about the American public’s ignorance about their civil rights and wants the next president to emphasize civic education and pledge to reject funding from institutions that practice censorship.

“American education in general has dropped the ball [in] understanding our rights,” Felipe said.

About 18 months before he became a trustee in March, Felipe talked about convincing then-Gov. Rick Scott to launch a state takeover of the college-owned tower and move Miami’s Cuban museum into the downtown landmark. Bring in Scott, he said, and the president of the college would have no say in the matter.

“If he wants to make it happen, he can make it happen, with or without Eduardo Padron’s desire,” Felipe said during a board meeting. An audio recording of that meeting was obtained by the Miami Herald.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Felipe said the Freedom Tower is “underutilized” by the college. Future use of the historic building is something he wants to ask of presidential candidates.

“We need to improve the use of the Freedom Tower in whichever way the owners of the Freedom Tower believe that it’s best,” he told the Herald. “If in making that decision one of the options is the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, then it would be proper, at least for appearances’ sake, that I would decline voting for that.”

The board at large declined to include those points in the official presidential profile. But the majority did vote to add two positions, an MDC alumnus and a representative from the MDC Foundation, to the search committee. That was proposed by chair Bernie Navarro, who led the first presidential search.

“The community, the college, quite frankly, has lost faith in us in this process,” he said. “They’re stakeholders that I think should be in the recommendation.”

The search committee, which has now grown from 15 to 17 members, was curated by trustee Nicole Washington. It currently includes three trustees, two representatives from the United Faculty of Miami Dade College, one student representative and five community members.

“This is the best list that I could come up with,” Washington said. Navarro, however, was upset that the new committee didn’t include more members of the first search committee. Just one past member, Marie Etienne, a professor of nursing at the medical campus, is serving on the new committee.

The search committee will convene January 16 to go over Florida Sunshine and open records laws and how to access the candidate pool through a web portal.

Trustee resigns

Navarro also announced at the meeting the resignation of Leon, whose profile was already removed from the college’s Board of Trustees page.

In a letter submitted to Gov. Ron DeSantis last Wednesday, Leon, who was reappointed in March, cited increased time commitments to Leon Medical Centers where he serves as CEO. Leon served on the board for 12 years, yet in recent months he was often absent or phoned into meetings. He made no mention of the presidential search in the letter.

Leon’s immediate departure could further imbalance board dynamics. Two of the four trustees who in May voted against scrapping the terminal degree requirement, the norm for selecting a college president, are now gone. That motion failed 4-3. Navarro is the only trustee not appointed by DeSantis.

The Miami Herald has reached out to Leon for comment. Navarro said he does not know who will replace Leon and said he has not spoken to DeSantis or Leon about the matter.

Faculty union president Elizabeth Ramsay called Tuesday’s meeting “hugely disappointing” because trustees did not distribute the timeline, profile and roster of search committee members ahead of time to the public.

“If you look at the new presidential search compared to this search, there’s a steep downward trend,” she said. “They squandered an opportunity to restore public trust.”

Navarro said he would commit to making those materials publicly available, describing the search as a work in progress.

“I will make sure it is up as soon as we have the information,” he said. “I want to see it as much as you do.”

Miami Herald staff writer David Smiley contributed to this report.

This story was originally published December 17, 2019 at 5:19 PM.