Joan Bullock in September sued the university’s board of regents in Houston federal court, claiming she was ousted in June without cause and stripped of her tenured faculty position afterward even though male deans in the past were allowed to remain on the faculty after their deanships ended.

The pipeline of traditional-age students will tighten further midway through this decade because of the drop in births during the Great Recession of 2008, forcing college leaders to compete more aggressively for fewer students.

Recessions typically lead to an uptick in enrollment, but the aftereffects of the pandemic are injecting yet more uncertainty into how hard the expected economic slowdown will hit colleges and universities.

"The next President should come already equipped to lead an institution of this caliber rather than aiming to learn on the job," the University of Florida Faculty Senate's no-confidence resolution says.