University of South Florida Restarts Search for Provost

The University of South Florida is restarting its search for a provost after a six-month effort yielded four candidates but no hire for the university’s top academic job.

One candidate, interim provost Eric Eisenberg, was asked to withdraw from the search in order to become senior vice president of university-community partnerships, a newly established role. According to a campus announcement, the search will now continue through the spring.

Other candidates for the role, according to The Tampa Bay Times, were Pranesh B. Aswath, senior vice provost for academic planning and policy at the University of Texas at Arlington; Erin McNamara Horvat, senior vice provost for faculty advancement and undergraduate affairs at Drexel University; and Giovanni Piedimonte, vice president of research at Tulane University.

“In light of this decision, I have decided to continue the provost search until we find the best possible fit with the right vision and experience, USF president Rhea Law announced in a campus email Wednesday. “I am grateful to our other finalists for their interest in USF, their willingness to participate in our search process and I wish them well in their careers. I am very appreciative of the hard work of our search committee under the leadership of Chair John Ramil and Vice Chair Balaji Padmanabhan, and I will share more details about the next steps soon.”