One thing I worry about, during a time like this coronavirus crisis, is what else will happen while no one’s looking. As Rahm Emmanuel said (ugh, can’t believe I’m quoting him): “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” What he meant was that you might be able to do things that were unthinkable before. But what I mean is that it provides cover to make political moves that might otherwise come under more scrutiny.

You might recall from my earlier reports that UCF is going through a weird president search right now. Well, apparently there has been a “mystery candidate” in the mix for a long time now, that we haven’t known about but who could get slipped in at the last minute. The finalist is supposed to be chosen by Friday of this week, and we still don’t know who this person is.

All this will be done by social distancing technology, meaning that there will be little real questioning by anyone but the committee.

““We are currently working aggressively to recruit an additional candidate — he’s an individual we’ve been hoarding for many, many weeks now,” Pimentel said. “He is a high visibility individual, he’s not a candidate as of yet, we are seriously trying to engage him in full consideration of this opportunity — we will keep you posted as our progress moves forward.”

“Pimentel said he is confident the individual will be able to be included in the candidate pool at some point.

““He is not a declared candidate, we are still in the recruitment process,” Pimentel said on Friday. “We will know more by Sunday whether or not he will be progressing with us on this journey.””

It is now Monday, and there is nothing on the presidential search site, nor has any announcement been made.

And, side note, why is it the student newspaper that has to alert us to this kind of thing?

This is why I have trust issues with the majority of upper administrators at my university. They do not want a real search, and they don’t want transparency, because hard questions might get asked. They want to do what they want to do.