Inside the U of A's messy provost search: ignored endorsements and a sudden departure

After just six weeks on the job, the University of Arizona’s new provost, Joseph Glover, announced he is leaving Tucson and returning to the University of Florida.

Glover, former provost at the University of Florida, is returning to serve as interim provost at his old stomping grounds.

He accepted the UA provostship this spring after a nationwide search that produced three finalists.

While Glover was UA President Robert C. Robbins’ first choice, many students and faculty members endorsed a different finalist.

The provost is the senior academic officer who oversees the faculty and the university’s academic mission.

Here’s how the search process came down:

May 2, 2023: Robbins announces that Liesl Folks, the university’s senior vice president and provost, will step down at the end of the school year. Many blamed her, in part, for university security lapses that preceded the fatal shooting of Professor Thomas Meixner by a former graduate student. Folks became provost in 2019.

Though she was stepping down from the provostship, Folks stayed at the university, becoming director at the Center for Semiconductor Manufacturing.

July 1, 2023: Ron Marx, a professor of education, begins a year-long tenure as interim provost.

Feb. 2, 2024: In an exclusive sit-down interview with the Arizona Daily Star, Robbins commits to hiring a provost despite the university being under an institution-wide hiring freeze.

“There’s a hiring freeze in place yet we’re out looking for a provost. We can’t have the university without a provost,” Robbins said.

March 26, 2024: Provost finalist Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, the dean of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, arrives to campus to meet with senior administrators and faculty members.

“I could not think of a place with a better fit as I’m thinking about my next stage in my professional career,” he said in a public presentation. “I’m looking forward to the possibility of engaging in a conversation around what would be the next decade for Arizona as you continue to grow.”

March 31: The second finalist, Marie Hardin, arrives on campus for her final interview.

Hardin serves as the dean of the Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University. It is the largest accredited mass communications program in the country.

April 2: Robbins announces he will resign as UA president when his contract ends in June 2026, or sooner if his replacement is named, amid what he has called a “financial crisis” at the university. Despite that, Hardin gives her presentation to the faculty about her candidacy for the provostship.

“Communication, at the end of the day, is the most important activity at the institution, and it must be the highest priority for a provost,” she said. “Even if we disagree on solutions, we must have collective clarity on our promise, on our problems and on our challenges.”

April 5: Abd-El-Khalick drops out of the provost search at the UA after accepting the provostship at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

April 10: Despite hiccups including one candidate dropping out and the president’s impending resignation, the UA’s provost search soldiers on. The last finalist, University of Florida Provost Joseph Glover, visits campus.

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“The primary job of a provost is to come in and make sure that the academic enterprise is flourishing,” he said at the time. “That means ... that students are being well served and that the talented faculty and staff are being retained and appropriately compensated because, in the end, it’s all about talent.”

April 17: More than 100 faculty members endorse Marie Hardin for the provostship over Joseph Glover in an email sent to senior leadership and obtained by the Star.

“(Glover’s) time with department heads was off-putting in regard to his not believing a provost should have much contact or interaction with them, demonstrating an apparent lack of understanding or commitment to the collective work,” the letter reads. “He seems to be a divisive candidate who will generate open resistance across a broad swath of the campus faculty and academic leadership.”

Among their other concerns, the faculty wrote that Glover had a “very odd and concerning response” about being a provost at a Hispanic serving institution.

The professors threw their weight behind Hardin.

“We believe (Hardin) has the experience, skills, track record, and perhaps most importantly, the necessary thoughtful and collaborative leadership style to bring UA together to harness the best of what we have to offer as a collective,” the letter reads. “In each of the immediate and forthcoming challenges that we face, Dean Hardin has demonstrated substantial and meaningful success.”

April 20: Former UA President John Schaefer questions the provost search, in a letter shared exclusively with the Star.

“The recruiting of a provost should be halted until a new president is appointed,” he said. “You do not hire the vice-president of a company before you hire the president!”

April 24: Student leaders representing more than 50,000 of their classmates at the UA send an email to senior leadership endorsing Hardin for the provostship over Glover.

“In student leadership meetings with the provost candidates, Dr. Hardin’s communication, expertise and leadership shone through,” says the email, obtained by the Star. “Student leaders clearly saw an effective champion of our voices in Dr. Hardin’s vision for student engagement and student success.”

Glover’s “inability to understand basic student needs, his inappropriate comments about the role of graduate students’ core function to the university and his inability to articulate the value of our land grant and (Hispanic serving institutions) led us to the conclusion that Dr. Glover is not what UA students need in our next provost,” the letter reads.

April 26: Robbins picks Glover to serve as the UA’s next provost.

He is set to begin on July 1 with a salary of $550,000.

“Dr. Glover’s experience and priorities as a leader reflect our university values, and his track record of academic excellence, faculty support and collaborative leadership will benefit our students, faculty, staff and community,” Robbins wrote in an email to campus.

Aug. 14: In an email to students and employees, Glover announces he is leaving the UA after less than two months to return to the University of Florida.

His resignation comes less than a week after the Arizona Board of Regents announces that Dr. Suresh Garimella, president of the University of Vermont, will become the 23rd president of the UA.

A University of Florida spokesperson confirmed that Glover will serve as interim provost.

“This is a difficult decision and one that I did not make lightly,” Glover wrote in his email. “When I took on this important role as Provost, I intended to stay and was committed to becoming an integral part of this community, advancing the university’s success in the years to come.”