FSU Trustees to make presidential pick Tuesday afternoon

By the News Service of Florida

The naming of the next president of Florida State University, long-rumored to be powerful state Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, is teed up for Tuesday afternoon. The presidential search is listed among the first agenda items for a meeting of the university's Board of Trustees. The trustees are scheduled to begin meeting at 2 p.m., though the agenda notes the meeting could begin 15 minutes after the board completes interviews with the remaining candidates. The interviews begin at8:30 a.m. There are four finalists for the post, and the trustees have asked the Presidential Search Advisory Committee to forward at least three names. The search committee meets Monday afternoon to make its recommendations. The finalists are: Thrasher; Michele G. Wheatly, who until June had been provost at West Virginia University; Colorado State University System Chancellor Michael V. Martin; and Richard B. Marchase, University of Alabama at Birmingham vice president for research and economic development. Marchase is set to appear before students, staff and faculty on Friday to complete a series of town hall-style forums set up for the finalists this week. While faculty gave Wheatly and Martin --- who appeared via Skype because of a health issue --- high marks after their appearances on Tuesday and Thursday, attendance for both was noticeably down from Thrasher's at-times testy appearance Monday.