The University of Florida is poised to name the president of the University of Michigan, Santa Ono, as its next leader, after months of uncertainty and rising concerns about political pressure on top campuses.
Dr. Ono was announced on Sunday as the sole finalist for Florida’s top job and said he would assume the role this summer. He could receive up to $3 million in total cash compensation annually and become the highest-paid public university president in the United States.
Although Michigan and Florida are among the nation’s best-regarded schools, both have faced substantial turmoil in recent years, and Dr. Ono, whose style frustrated many in Ann Arbor, is moving from one lightning rod to another.
In March, the University of Michigan announced that it would shut down its primary diversity, equity and inclusion effort, a program that was the subject of internal dispute but had nevertheless been regarded as a model for the higher education industry. Last week, eight people brought a federal lawsuit that accused the university of retaliation because they participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
Dr. Ono is planning to step into a Florida presidency that Ben Sasse, a Republican who had represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate, abruptly left last summer.
The boards of both the university and the university system must still ratify Dr. Ono’s hiring, but those steps are seen as formalities. The university, which Dr. Ono plans to visit on Tuesday, did not immediately release any contract terms. A board committee voted in February, though, to offer up to $3 million in what it described as “total cash compensation.”
In October, Dr. Ono agreed to a contract extension at Michigan that would have kept him in Ann Arbor until 2032 and raised his base salary to $1.3 million. Now Dr. Ono is set to leave the university after less than three years in its presidency, the shortest tenure of any permanent Michigan leader.
James H. Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University who has studied the contracts of university leaders, said Dr. Ono was positioned to have the highest pay of any public school president in the country, perhaps earning as much within a year or two at Florida as he would have in the early 2030s at Michigan.
Over the last year, Michigan has faced a number of issues that have divided its campus. It fired a diversity programs administrator after she was accused of making antisemitic comments. Last spring, the university allowed an encampment related to the war in Gaza to stand for weeks before the authorities dismantled it.
And conflict over the war extended into the student government after pro-Palestinian activists won elections and stopped funding for campus groups unless the university divested from certain companies. The university refused, and the student government leaders were ultimately impeached and removed. Earlier in Dr. Ono’s presidency, Michigan faced a five-month strike by graduate student instructors.
Florida has also been involved in fights that resonated beyond its campus. The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis said recently it had intervened in the University of Florida’s search for a new College of Liberal Arts and Sciences dean after a social media account accused the four finalists of being “radical DEI progressives.”
The university soon suspended its search, and Florida’s interim president, Kent Fuchs, said it was “inadvisable to appoint a new dean without the full participation of the next president.”
But one of Governor DeSantis’s aides promoted a social media post that had castigated the candidates. The aide, Bryan Griffin, added that the administration had “worked with” the university and that the search had been “halted.”
“UF leadership was cooperative & has committed to holding off,” Mr. Griffin, Mr. DeSantis’s communications director, wrote on social media.
Dr. Ono will fill a role that Mr. Sasse left less than 18 months into a five-year, $10 million contract. After Mr. Sasse quit, he came under fire for the university’s spending and hiring during his tenure. Florida’s board had also been concerned about the university’s decline — from No. 5 to No. 6 — in the U.S. News & World Report rankings of public universities. The university later fell to No. 7.
Florida would be Dr. Ono’s fourth presidency. In addition to Michigan, he also led the University of British Columbia and the University of Cincinnati.
“Ono is one of the few presidents today who is a professional president,” said Dr. Finkelstein.
Judith A. Wilde, a research professor at George Mason who collaborates with Dr. Finkelstein, noted that roughly 80 percent of college leaders hold just one top job in their careers. About 18 percent, she said, go on to a second presidency.
In a statement released by Florida, Dr. Ono expressed enthusiasm for his latest role.
“No other public university combines U.F.’s momentum, its role as the flagship of one of the nation’s most important states, the extraordinary support from state leaders and a shared vision across its entire community,” he said.
