University of Florida Trustees Appoint Columbia Scientist Donald Landry as Interim President
Dr. Donald W. Landry, a Columbia physician-scientist, will assume the interim presidency on September 1, pending confirmation by the Florida Board of Governors.
Gainesville, August 25 EST: The University of Florida Board of Trustees did not simply fill a vacancy today. By unanimously selecting Dr. Donald W. Landry, a veteran Columbia University physician‑scientist, as interim president, the board signaled a desire for technical competence and reputational ballast during a politically charged moment for a flagship public campus. The decision lands at the hinge of an unsettled year that began with Ben Sasse’s exit, passed through the return of former president Kent Fuchs as a short‑term stabilizer, and now enters a new phase that will still require clearance from the Florida Board of Governors.
Why This Choice, Why Now
Trustees reached for an outsider with gravitas. Dr. Landry, chair emeritus of Columbia’s Department of Medicine, the Hamilton Southworth Professor of Medicine, former Physician‑in‑Chief at NewYork‑Presbyterian/Columbia, and director of Columbia’s Center for Human Longevity, arrives with a record that blends scholarship and operations. According to UF News, he has more than 150 peer‑reviewed publications and over 50 U.S. patents, and was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2008. That résumé is not accidental to the politics of the moment. It reassures faculty who want a leader conversant in research and clinical care, while giving trustees an interim chief who can credibly steady a sprawling enterprise that includes a major academic medical center.
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The board framed its vote as a bet on proven leadership. Mori Hosseini, the UF board chair, called Landry “a highly accomplished scientist” who has shown “exceptional leadership in academia and beyond,” as carried in the university’s announcement. Landry answered with the tone seasoned administrators often adopt at times like this, calling it “an extraordinary honor” and pledging to work closely with UF’s faculty, staff and students. The message was unity, not experimentation.
A Transition With Many Authors
The move caps a long, public pivot. In July 2024, the university announced that President Ben Sasse would resign effective July 31, 2024, handing trustees a delicate problem just as a new academic year came into view. As documented by UF News, the board turned to Kent Fuchs, who previously guided UF through a period of growth. The Florida Board of Governors later formalized Fuchs’s employment as interim president in September 2024, with performance goals set out in his agreement. Then, as summer 2025 approached, UF acknowledged the clock was running. According to WUFT/Fresh Take Florida, Fuchs’s interim contract was extended one month, through September 1, 2025.
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That sequencing mattered. The extension bought trustees time to settle on a successor and ensured there would be no leadership vacuum at the top of UF. Today’s unanimous vote tightens that choreography. Landry’s term is scheduled to begin on September 1, 2025, the day Fuchs’s extension ends. The stagecraft is not subtle. It advertises continuity.
The State’s Role Comes Next
There is still one more gate. As UF noted, the Florida Board of Governors must confirm the appointment. The board’s next scheduled window is September 10–11, 2025, which is the earliest opportunity for formal action. That is a short runway. During that interlude, the university will be operating with an announced interim president whose authority is broad in practice but still framed as pending. Barring surprise, the confirmation vote would align with the trustees’ choice. Still, the extra step underscores how statewide governance can shape even interim leadership decisions at a campus with outsized national ambitions.
An Ivy League Outsider In A Sun Belt Test
It is tempting to view Landry as a purely technocratic pick. That would miss the deeper context. Landing a Columbia physician‑scientist is also a reputational play at a time when public universities are navigating bruising debates over academic freedom, campus speech and research agendas. Choosing a leader with deep ties to a global research powerhouse is a way to project confidence, signal quality to donors and federal partners, and reassure faculty recruits across the sciences.
Local coverage reflected those stakes. WCJB previewed the trustees’ deliberations while highlighting Landry’s Columbia pedigree. The Independent Florida Alligator underscored his emergence as the preferred interim choice. Higher‑education reporter Andrew Atterbury flagged the move on X, a sign that the decision is being watched beyond Gainesville and Tallahassee. Each of those reactions points to the same underlying reality. Personnel choices at UF are no longer just campus stories. They are political stories about who sets the tone for a top‑tier public institution that competes nationally for grants, faculty and students.
What The Vote Reveals About Power
The unanimous vote tells its own story. Trustees presented a united front after a year in which the presidency has been a moving target. That kind of unanimity does not just happen. It reflects negotiations behind the scenes and a shared understanding that the next interim should lower the political temperature, not raise it. By selecting someone with no obvious factional alignment within Florida, the board opted for credibility over combat. There is calculation there. An outsider who has run a massive clinical and academic operation has less local baggage and more space to broker trust.
At the same time, unanimity is not a cure‑all. As with any interim, authority rests on momentum. It will be measured in how Landry handles budget priorities, senior appointments, and the everyday politics of a flagship that spans Gainesville classrooms, research labs and statewide clinical networks. The opening weeks will be revealing. Interim leaders do not have long to define themselves before the permanent search conversation begins in earnest.
Practical Stakes Between Now And September
Assuming the Board of Governors follows the trustees’ lead in September, Landry will inherit a portfolio defined by continuity and caution. The immediate tasks look straightforward on paper. Meet with deans and department chairs. reassure faculty who have lived through a churn of headlines. speak with student leaders who want to know where the campus is heading. The trick is execution. Interims can be powerful precisely because they are expected to keep the trains running. They can also be hostage to events.
For now, the timeline is crisp. Landry is set to begin September 1, 2025. The expected confirmation window is September 10–11, 2025. The synchronized handoff from Fuchs suggests trustees intend to avoid any daylight in leadership. The message to rank‑and‑file employees is familiar in higher education there will be change at the top, but your work goes on.
The Bottom Line
This appointment is less a plot twist than a course correction. UF wants calm, professional command while the politics around public higher education continue to churn. By choosing Dr. Donald W. Landry, trustees have placed a highly credentialed outsider in a job that demands ballast more than it demands fireworks. That said, the story is not finished. The state confirmation remains ahead, and the real test will be whether Landry can convert institutional goodwill into the kind of everyday leadership that faculty, students and staff actually feel. For a campus that has lived with uncertainty, even a steady hand can be consequential.
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A political science PhD who jumped the academic ship to cover real-time governance, Olivia is the East Coast's sharpest watchdog. She dissects power plays in Trenton and D.C. without bias or apology.
