University of North Florida trustees are forwarding presidential finalist Michael P. Shannon’s name to the state university system’s Board of Governors for confirmation as the school’s next leader.
Shannon, now president of the University of North Georgia, said in a statement following the trustees’ 10-2 vote September 16 that he was “humbled and honored” to be selected as president-elect.
“UNF is on the verge of becoming one of the great American university success stories of this era,” he said after an interview and board discussion that lasted more than three hours.
The Board of Governors has two remaining meetings scheduled this year, on September 30 and November 12-13.
The trustees
agreed that Chair Steve Moore would negotiate terms for Shannon’s contract and bring that agreement for a vote during their next meeting on September 23.
While voicing some concerns that Shannon has no experience working with Florida’s lawmakers and university funding system ― Shannon volunteered that he’s never been to Tallahassee ― trustees praised his energy and widely varied work history.
“I think he has very strong leadership and character,” said trustee Jack Boyle, who chaired a search committee that picked Shannon from a pool of 152 applicants.
Shannon, who has a PhD in nuclear and radiological engineering from Georgia Tech, finished a 20-year U.S. Army career as a lieutenant colonel in 2015 and was Georgia Tech's interim chief business officer before joining North Georgia in 2023.
During his interview with the trustees, Shannon talked about "wide open" opportunities for UNF to prosper and referred to Jacksonville as "a gold mine that UNF has not fully tapped yet."
He expressed hope for seeing a "semi-autonomous" research organization develop at UNF, saying federal government funding could be key to that happening. Shannon noted that his career had included time as a federal contract officer and said that in UNF's revenue streams, "our DoD [Department of Defense] funding is almost nothing."
Asked how a university should measure student success, he talked about developing students' academic achievement, sense of purpose, well-being and sense of belonging, referencing UNF's plans for a Student Success Center as an important vehicle for the last yardstick.
Shannon talked about a need for careful attention as UNF pursues goals it set to have both more students and academic excellence, saying a university is "easy to break" through unwitting mistakes.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: UNF trustees OK University of North Georgia head as president-elect
