TALLAHASSEE --- Less than two years into the job, University of Florida President Ben Sasse on Thursday announced he will step down July 31 because of his wife鈥檚 health.
鈥淢y wife Melissa鈥檚 recent epilepsy diagnosis and a new batch of memory issues have been hard, but we鈥檙e facing it together,鈥� Sasse said in a prepared statement. 鈥淥ur two wonderful daughters are in college, but our youngest is just turning 13. Gator Nation needs a president who can keep charging hard, Melissa deserves a husband who can pull his weight, and my kids need a dad who can be home many more nights.鈥�
Sasse, who left a Nebraska U.S. Senate seat to become the university鈥檚 president, will move into a teaching role. The university鈥檚 Board of Trustees will name an interim president and prepare to search for a new leader.
Mori Hosseini, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said in a statement that Sasse 鈥渓eft a lasting impact on the university.鈥�
鈥淯nder his leadership, UF has continued to advance on the national and international stage, benefiting our students, faculty, alumni, community and state,鈥� Hosseini said.
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Sasse was confirmed as president by the state university system鈥檚 Board of Governors in November 2022 over the objections of some students and faculty members.
Sasse鈥檚 five-year contract included a $1 million base salary, with annual performance bonuses of up to 15 percent. He will forego a $1 million payout that would have been provided if he served the full five-year term.
Sasse holds a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from Yale University. Sasse also worked as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and spent five years as president of Midland University, a small private school in Nebraska. A Republican, he was first elected to the Senate in 2014.
When he was confirmed as UF president, Sasse expressed a goal of creating an environment at the school of about 60,000 students to 鈥渓ive in community together鈥� and to meet with various campus stakeholders. But he also suggested that some of the heartburn about his candidacy was sensationalized.
鈥淭here is always going to be, in a time as disrupted as ours, a sort of sensationalist tendency to take whatever an angriest moment is and pretend that it鈥檚 a representative moment. Those are not the representative moments,鈥� Sasse said when confirmed by the board.
Sasse was hired under a then-new state law that allows presidential searches to be conducted in private. Under the law, names of finalists are made public at the end of searches.
Sasse鈥檚 selection as the lone candidate left the names of 11 other finalists undisclosed, drawing objections from many people on campus.
Sasse鈥檚 announcement Thursday came less than a week after Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson said he will step down after nearly seven years leading the state鈥檚 only historically Black public university.
Robinson鈥檚 action followed the school accepting and later rejecting a $237 million donation after questions arose about its legitimacy. The Florida A&M Board of Trustees will meet Tuesday and is expected to discuss a presidential search.
