Board Chair Rogelio Tovar said Gov. Ron DeSantis' office contacted him and asked him to consider Nuñez as the next president.

After FAU relaunched the search, Hasner, a former Republican majority leader in the Florida House, emerged as a finalist. Now a vice president at Florida-based private prison company GEO Group, Hasner beat out two academics for the role: a dean at Florida State University and the provost of the University of Maine.

Florida Atlantic University hired a former GOP lawmaker as president, and Florida International University tapped the lieutenant governor at the urging of Governor Ron DeSantis.