Search for new Poly chief soon to start

Posted Jan 9, 2012 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Jan 9, 2012 at 05:47 PM

USF is moving right along toward finding a permanent replacement for Marshall Goodman at USF Polytechnic.

USF President Judy Genshaft dismissed Goodman from his chancellor’s post last month, giving Lakeland CPA David Touchton the interim job.

Picking a replacement is a major move because Poly’s new chancellor could end up becoming Poly’s first president when it goes independent - after meeting several goals set in November by the state university Board of Governors.

Meeting (by phone) with a group of USF trustees assigned to monitor the Poly independence quest, Genshaft said last week she was leaning toward hiring the R. William Funk & Associates search firm.

He’s led other searches for polytechnic chiefs. He also led the search that put Frank Brogan in the chancellor’s seat of the Florida State University System.

There’ll be more discussion about this on Thursday. That’s when the two subcommittees keeping tabs on Poly – one from the USF Board of Trustees the other from the Board of Governors – meet in Orlando. Here’s the agenda.

A couple of members of the governors subcommittee were peeved at Genshaft after she named Touchton, an opponent of separating Poly from USF.

That set off board member John Temple, who dropped an indignant letter on Brogan last week.

But it seems the fireworks show has ended, for now.

You can go here for a sanitized version of the tension-filled conference call over Goodman’s replacement.