Brogan's contract approved as university system chancellor

Frank Brogan, incoming chancellor of the Florida's university system, appeared with Gov. Charlie Crist this afternoon following the Board of Governor's vote to approve Brogan's contract.

Brogan, who has served as president of Florida Atlantic University since 2003, leaves that post on Sept. 13 to take over as chancellor the following day. He served as lieutenant governor with then-Gov. Jeb Bush, and as state commissioner of education before that.

"He's a real state treasure, there's no question about it," said Crist, who lauded Brogan's work at FAU.

Brogan said he felt "right at home" being back at the Capitol and looked forward to being one of several guiding forces of "the many-headed hydra" that comprises Florida's higher education system.

Governance of the state's higher-education system has been a tug-of-war for years between the Legislature and state Board of Governors, culminating in a court lawsuit that the board joined in 2007 in an attempt to wrest authority away from lawmakers to set tuition. Relations between former Chancellor Mark Rosenberg and some in the Legislature turned so frosty the following year that Rosenberg resigned the post.

Brogan said he thinks the governance controversy is more or less settled now and believes the Legislature and board are continuing down a path now of greater cooperation.

"We've got to make it work; more and more time spent on the governance structure is counterproductive and takes time away from the business at hand, which is moving the system forward," he said. "Timing is everything, and I do hope - and I think I saw the beginnings of this, this last session - where the relationship between the Board of Governors and the Legislature is softening ... my job is to not just accept that, but to build on that for the future."

Brogan said he also hopes the most difficult budget cuts are now behind the system, which is shedding hundreds of jobs, including those of tenure-track professors, and in some cases, entire academic departments. The incoming chancellor said the budget crisis has been an opportunity to make the system more efficient and eliminate broken and duplicative parts of the system. But he hopes, he said, that the time has come "to begin again, and build a system that will ultimately achieve national recognition. This system deserves that."

The Board of Governors appointed Brogan on July 17 and approved a salary package for him today that, including benefits, totals close to $460,000.