First provost candidate announced in recently resumed search
Prasant Mohapatra, vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Davis, was announced Friday as a candidate in the search for a new provost in a universitywide email sent by Chair John Ramil and Vice Chair Balaji Padmanabhan.
Mohapatra will visit each of the three campuses for town halls, with Tampa’s taking place Wednesday at 10 a.m. in room 136 of the Patel Center for Global Solutions.
The other campuses will hold town halls on Tuesday, with St. Pete’s occurring at 11 a.m. and Sarasota-Manatee’s at 3:30 p.m.
Although he’s the first candidate to be considered for the position in this new search, four other candidates also competed for the role last fall until one, Interim Provost Eric Eisenberg, was asked to withdraw from the race in November. Eisenberg took on the newly created position on the presidential cabinet as senior vice president of university-community partnerships.
This decision paused the search until it was officially resumed and restarted on Tuesday.
The search committee will remain unchanged from the fall as they continue to bring forth new candidates.
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