NY Times: Did Ben Sasse Resign As UF President Because Of U.S. News Rankings Decline Of University And Law School?

New York Times, A Star President’s Resignation Was a Mystery. Was It All About Rankings?:

Florida’s star president, Ben Sasse, was among the best paid university presidents ever. He promised a conservative overhaul, but then he resigned, leaving controversy and an embarrassing drop in the U.S. News rankings.

Ben Sasse, the Nebraska senator, arrived in Florida in February 2023 to help cement a conservative makeover of one of the nation’s top five public universities.

The University of Florida had lured the senator with an unusual $10 million, five-year contract, possibly the most lucrative ever for a public university president. Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded the selection of a fellow Republican, calling Dr. Sasse a “deep thinker on education policy.”

Then, in July, just 17 months into his contract at the Gainesville university, Dr. Sasse resigned, sparking a host of questions about what went wrong.

Dr. Sasse cited his wife’s deteriorating health as the reason for his departure. But observers of the university knew there were a number of other possible factors.

The former senator had never quite won over many professors or students. After he announced his resignation, there were revelations about questionable hiring practices and spending.

There were also signs that Dr. Sasse faced another problem that has haunted college leaders everywhere: the school’s U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Before Dr. Sasse took over the school, the University of Florida had been proudly ranked among the country’s top five public universities. Just months into Dr. Sasse’s tenure, though, the school fell to No. 6, prompting the removal of the No. 5 banners that had hung from lampposts throughout campus.

Dr. Sasse didn’t have much respect for the U.S. News & World Report rankings, but the university’s politically connected board of trustees very much did. ...

Perhaps few places have been more obsessive followers of the rankings than Florida, where a state law encourages public universities to aim for high rankings.

“The powers that be in the state of Florida wanted every aspect of U.F. to be a top-ranked school,” said Mike Spivey, the founder of Spivey Consulting, which was hired to help the University of Florida’s law school climb the rankings.

Moving upward on U.S. News lists has been part of the university’s strategic planning since at least 2017. Over the years, according to records and interviews, the university had pored over spreadsheets in minute detail, inflated faculty head count, ordered what professors believed was unnecessary equipment and spent millions luring higher-scoring students — all for rankings.

Yet when the latest U.S. News rankings were released in September, Florida had fallen once again, to No. 7.

Whether Dr. Sasse’s indifference to the rankings led to his resignation is unclear, but the chasm between the president and the board of trustees seemed to develop as the university’s rankings status became more tenuous. Some on campus are convinced it explains his departure from the presidency.

“The board saw us dropping in the rankings and said, We’ve got to stabilize the ship,” said Danaya Wright, a law professor who served until May as the faculty representative on the board. ...

A Law School in Decline

Nowhere has the university’s quest for higher rankings been more obvious than at its Levin College of Law, which had risen to No. 21 on the U.S. News law school rankings from No. 48 in less than 10 years.

But the law school also faced trouble. Its ranking had dropped to No. 22 in 2023 from No. 21. For years, the former law school dean, Laura Rosenbury, had worked to lift the school’s standing. Among other tactics, the school used tuition discounts to lure students with higher LSAT scores, a factor in the rankings. ...

Michelle Jacobs, a former Florida law professor, said that even purchases for equipment and furnishings were used to increase the rankings, by increasing expenditures per student.

“One summer when we returned to school, every single chair from every single classroom had been put in the dumpster,” she said. “They were perfectly good chairs.”

Ms. Jacobs said that the law school had also artificially inflated its faculty by counting guest speakers among them. ...

The faculty head count climbed, practically overnight, to 343 in 2022 from 250 in 2021. ...

Dr. Sasse announced his resignation [in June 2024]. His wife’s health, a problem since a stroke in 2007, was deteriorating further, he said. ...

The board quickly brought back the old provost and the former president, Kent Fuchs, who was credited with leading the university to the top five. The university dismissed most of the employees Dr. Sasse had brought in. ...

“They are clearly bringing back the old team,” said Dr. Wright, the former faculty representative on the board. The goal, she believes, “is be No. 5 and be happy.”

Amid the tumult, some good news emerged. Florida’s bar passage rate increased — to more than 90 percent, a 10-percentage point increase over 2023’s. Mr. Hosseini personally donated $1 million to the law school as a reward.

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