FAU trustee’s many resentments stir more tension | Steve Bousquet

The trustees of Florida Atlantic University held a remote board meeting Tuesday. Good thing they were online. If they were in the same room, somebody could have gotten hurt.

It was that mean and personal, and it was largely the result of one trustee, Barbara Feingold.

Her name has been synonymous with FAU for a long time. Feingold is the trustee board’s vice chair and a member of the committee that conducted a presidential search that’s suspended due to political interference by allies of Gov. Ron DeSantis in Tallahassee, leaving the university rudderless with three finalists twisting in the wind as a new academic year begins in Boca Raton.

Feingold and her husband Jeffrey own MCNA, a leading dental insurance provider. A philanthropist and Republican fundraiser, she has been a political supporter of Rep. Randy Fine, the combative, fiercely partisan legislator who was invited by DeSantis to seek the FAU presidency but who did not make the final cut. Right after Fine was wisely rejected, DeSantis’ flunkies on the state Board of Governors, which oversees the university system, suspended the search and began a specious investigation of supposed “anomalies.”

Feingold gave $1,000 to Fine’s 2016 House race and $10,000 to his political committee last fall. As we’ve said on these opinion pages, the intolerant Fine would be a catastrophic choice to lead the state’s most diverse university at a time when it’s hitting its stride.

We don’t know whether Feingold wants Fine for the FAU job. But we know this: She doesn’t think any of the three finalists are qualified.

They are Sean Buck, a Navy vice admiral and superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy; Michael Hartline, dean of the College of Business at Florida State University; and Jose “Zito” Sartarelli, former chancellor at UNC Wilmington.

“You talk about your wonderful finalists, none of which I voted for,” Feingold said Tuesday, “and I’m talking out of turn.”

She sure was.

By declaring that she voted against the three finalists, she appeared to violate the spirit of a non-disclosure agreement she and others signed to not publicly discuss the search. The NDA also demands “the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct” and “to guard against inaccuracies, carelessness, bias and distortion,” and Feingold miserably fails that measure, too.

Bias? No one escaped Feingold’s wrath. She disparaged her fellow trustees. She mischaracterized finalists’ work histories. She ripped Dick Schmidt, a search committee member whose family is FAU’s largest donor, for expressing his opinion. Schmidt wrote a Viewpoint essay in this newspaper that criticized the Board of Governors for its “wholly inaccurate” criticism of the search, and for that, Feingold wants Schmidt punished.

“I’d really like to know what’s going to happen to Dick Schmidt — how the university is going to go after him, because he was not supposed to be putting any information out there,” Feingold said. “He had no right to speak for me and other search committee members who absolutely did not agree with his opinion.”

Feingold’s tirade shows poor leadership and adds to the perception of dysfunction at FAU — the very last thing it needs.

She saved her harshest criticism for Brad Levine, the search committee chairman. Among many other grievances, she blasted Levine for speaking to the Sun Sentinel about the search, which he has done in a news article and in an editorial where he simply said FAU appreciates public input.

“I resent the fact that you’ve been speaking for all of us,” Feingold told Levine. She ripped him for defending the search in a letter to Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, calling it “embarrassing.”

Feingold also falsely accused Levine of violating his non-disclosure agreement by speaking to this newspaper. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. The NDA reads: “I acknowledge that only the Chair is authorized to speak to the media on behalf of the institution.”

We twice asked FAU Media Relations to speak to Feingold, but we have received no reply.

One other trustee, Linda Stock, echoed Feingold’s criticism. The rest strongly defended Levine, including Piero Bussani, Shaun Davis, Kimberley Dunn, Earnie Ellison and the newest board member, Pablo Paez, who said it was important to avoid “personal” disputes.

The tense session is online; you can watch for yourself. Hopefully for the university’s sake, few will bother to watch this spectacle, because it’s sure to make donors think twice about writing checks to FAU.

These divisions illustrate the damage caused by the state’s disruption of the search. Levine and other trustees consider the state action politically poisonous and out of line. Feingold defends the investigation and says it will reveal “the real truth.” This won’t end well.

Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale. Contact him at sbousquet@sunsentinel.com or (850) 567-2240 and follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @stevebousquet.