FIU faculty want outgoing provost to stay on amid chaos after Rosenberg resignation
Concerned about instability at Florida International University following President Mark Rosenberg’s abrupt resignation, the faculty senate voted overwhelmingly to recommend the provost stay on, despite being demoted by Rosenberg the day after the university launched an investigation into his alleged misconduct toward a woman who worked closely with him.
“It’s been a long weekend. Friday was not good, and Sunday was worse,” said FIU Sen. Allan Rosenbaum, a public policy and administration professor who drafted the motion along with Sen. Victor Uribe, a history professor, during Tuesday’s faculty senate meeting. On Friday, Rosenberg resigned. On Sunday, the details of his harassment allegations surfaced and were reported by the Herald and other media.
The motion recommended that FIU’s new interim president, Kenneth Jessell, appointed Friday after Rosenberg’s resignation, keep Kenneth Furton on as provost, the chief academic officer at FIU. He is supposed to leave his post on March 1.
‘Critical time’ for FIU
“Given the sudden resignation of FIU’s President and the need for continuity and trust at this critical time, Provost Furton is the person most qualified and best positioned to support the interim president in the University’s central functions of teaching, research, and service,” read the faculty motion, approved by all 62 FIU senators on Tuesday, except for two.
Faculty Senate Chair Joerg Reinhold, who also serves on the FIU board, told the Herald through FIU spokeswoman Maydel Santana, that he didn’t know the names of the dissenters.
With Rosenberg’s departure, the two top academic positions of the largest public university in South Florida — and the second-largest public university in the state with more than 56,000 students — would be held by interim professionals come March 1, Santana said.
On Friday night, the FIU Board of Trustees confirmed Kenneth Jessell, 66, CFO and FIU’s senior vice president since 2009, as interim president, following Rosenberg’s resignation. Jessell’s ascension to interim president means the CFO position is also open.
Furton, 59, in a statement Wednesday issued through Santana, said, “He is working on his response to the senate and the president and he would like to complete that.”
Demotion in December
The provost issue stems from a Dec. 16 announcement by Rosenberg, then FIU’s president, saying Furton, 59, provost since 2014, would move into the role of Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Director of the Global Forensic and Justice Center and become provost emeritus. He didn’t specify what led to the change in the provost’s office.
A day earlier, on Dec. 15, FIU Board of Trustees Chair Dean Colson appointed an outside law firm to investigate Rosenberg’s actions toward the woman, who had confided to an FIU colleague that Rosenberg had told her at least three times since October that he loved her, wanted to be with her and would take care of her. Rosenberg is 72 and the woman, whom the Herald has chosen not to identify, is in her 20s.
Rosenberg issued a statement Sunday, saying he had “caused discomfort for a valued colleague,” acknowledging, “I unintentionally created emotional [not physical] entanglement.” In the same statement to the FIU community, Rosenberg said, “I have apologized. I apologize to you. I take full responsibility and regret my actions.”
Rosenberg, who started at FIU as an assistant political science professor in 1976, said his mental health had been impacted by the pressure of caring for his wife Rosalie, his wife of 47 years who has advanced dementia.
FIU rises during Furton tenure
Furton has worked at FIU since 1988 as a professor and administrator; he was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences before being named provost in 2014. Under his tenure, FIU’S SAT scores of incoming freshman jumped from 1121 to 1270 and FIU moved up 54 spots in five years in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, the biggest jump among top research universities.
The senators recommended Furton stay in place until the board selects a permanent president, and if needed, the search for a new provost starts and ends under the permanent president.
After the meeting Tuesday, Reinhold sent the resolution to Jessell and the Board of Trustees. The provost is hired by the president; Jessell would have to ask Furton to stay on longer.
“I told President Jessell that the Board and I will support whatever decision he makes,” Colson said in a statement through Santana to the Herald Wednesday.
‘Skeletons in the closet?’
During the Faculty Senate discussion, Sen. Julian Edward, a mathematics professor, questioned what he called the “unofficial reasons” behind Furton’s job change.
“If we want to sort of interject to keep him on as provost, I’d like some kind of reassurance that any reason that he was moved away from provost was for policy reasons, etc., and that there aren’t any skeletons in the closet that we should know about,” he said.
Reinhold replied: “As a trustee, I personally am not aware of any skeletons.”
Furton also tried to qualm any fears.
“I had a great relationship with President Rosenberg,” he told senators during the meeting. “It was not because of anything negative that occurred, which is why, when I move out of the provost role, I will be provost emeritus and distinguished university professor.”
“But the timeline of when that occurs, I’m open. And I mentioned this to President Jessell, that I’m happy to stay on for as long as he needs me, but that’s not my choice,” he said. “Pretty much most of the top positions serve at the pleasure of the president.”
Condemning sexual harassment
The FIU Faculty Senate also passed a second motion that broadly rejected sexual harassment but fell short of naming Rosenberg.
“The Faculty Senate expresses our disappointment, frustration, and sadness at the news of the past days. Sexual harassment cannot be tolerated,” the resolution read. “We share our support and empathy for the victim; no staff, student, faculty, or administrator should ever feel unsafe in our FIU community.”
Colson, the board chair, said in a statement: “FIU has strong personnel and workplace conduct policies, takes all workplace conduct seriously, and remains committed to enforcing its policies thoroughly and swiftly.”
All senators but one voted affirmatively. Similarly to the first motion, Reinhold couldn’t identify the dissenter.
The motion drew sharp discussion. Sen. Patricia Pereira-Pujol, an associate librarian, said Rosenberg’s actions were “totally inappropriate. It really bothers me that our former President Rosenberg and other people are trying to justify his behavior because of the emotional turmoil that he was going through, or because it was emotional and not physical, etc., etc.
“It really bothers me that we are still trying to justify his behavior and diminish what he did.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2022 at 9:51 PM.
