Just weeks after becoming the University of Arizona’s provost and senior vice-president for academic affairs, Jon Glover said Tuesday he will return to the University of Florida — another school where financial issues have arisen.

In an email to staff and students, Glover said “after careful consideration” he would leave his position and return to UF, which is “undergoing a major transition.” 

A longtime mathematics professor and former high-level administrator, Glover was hired despite outspoken UA faculty opposition in April and began his role on July 1. 

“This is a difficult decision and one that I did not make lightly,” Glover wrote. “When I took on this important role as provost, I intended to stay and was committed to becoming an integral part of this community, advancing the university’s success in the years to come.” 

“When I arrived in Tucson in early summer, I bought a home and truly enjoyed getting to know this community,” he said. “In this short time, I learned about the incredible work of our dedicated faculty and staff and grew to love this university. The UA is a wonderful place and truly one of the gems of the state.” 

Glover is returning to Florida, where UF President Ben Sasse directed millions in university funds to his own office. In the last 17-months, the former Republican senator “more than tripled his office’s spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies,” the Alligator, an independent news outlet, reported on Monday. 

“Sasse ballooned spending under the president’s office to $17.3 million in his first year in office — up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs’ last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data,” wrote the Alligator. 

Glover’s resignation is among a series of major shake-ups among UA leaders over the last several months since November when UA President Robert C. Robbins and then-Chief Financial Officer Lisa Rulney told the Arizona Board of Regents the university faced a “financial crisis.” Rulney stepped back from her CFO title, with Robbins implying she had resigned, although she remained on salary at the university. Robbins announced in April he would resign his post, prompting ABOR to immediately being to seek a new president. 

On Friday, ABOR said they would have the University of Vermont’s Suresh Garimella step into the role as the 23rd president for the UA. 

Meanwhile, the board tapped Chad Sampson to become ABOR’s executive director, replacing John Arnold who arrived at the UA to manage its financial woes. In June, Arnold was given a permanent position at the UA becoming its chief operating officer, a position created in the wake of the university’s struggles to manage its finances. 

Glover’s pick came despite a group of more than 100 UA department heads and other faculty members sending Robbins, the members of ABOR, and the provost search committee a letter disapproving of their choice to hire him as provost. 

“We do NOT believe that Prof. Joseph Glover would be a wise choice,” they wrote, saying he has a “record of not being very effective in engaging faculty in shared governance activities.’

“Nothing in his visit led us to believe he would be someone who would help bring the campus together. Quite the contrary, he seems to be a divisive candidate who will generate open resistance across a broad swath of the campus faculty and academic leadership,” they wrote.

The letter, sent April 16, urged the appointment of Penn State Prof. Marie Hardin, a journalism professor and dean of the College of Communications, as the next provost.

“She was interviewed last time, and the STEM people on the committee didn’t take her seriously, as a communications scholar,” one of the signers told the Tucson Sentinel on Friday.

Hardin was passed over when UA tapped Prof. Liesl Folks to be the provost in 2019.

Folks resigned from the high-level administrative post — one usually considered to be the college president’s “enforcer” — last May, when she and UA Police Chief Paula Balafas were pushed out in the wake of the fatal attack on Prof. Thomas Meixner by a former student, which took place despite repeated flags raised by faculty.

UA leadership were blasted by the campus community over that incident, with the Faculty Senate declaring “no confidence” in Robbins and his administration — and naming Balafas and Folks in particular.

Some professors felt like “sitting ducks” in the months leading up the the killing of Meixner, they told the Tucson Sentinel.

Folks transitioned to a position as an Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty member, working to set up a Center for Semiconducting Manufacturing at the university.

The faculty letter this month said Glover’s “time with department heads was off-putting in regard to his not believing a provost should have much contact or interaction with them, demonstrating an apparent lack of understanding or commitment to the collective work of Heads Up.”

“When asked about being provost at an HSI (a Hispanic-serving institution), he indicated that he ‘needed to learn more about this…’ which is a very odd and concerning response given his provostship in Florida, a state with many HSIs, and many tribal nations. Our sense is that he has neither an understanding of nor a commitment to the values that define us as a land grant, and that constitute important areas of strategic opportunity and competitive advantage,” the faculty wrote.

“He seems unduly focused on rankings, and on ‘moving up’in those rankings, which is part of what contributed to our current financial situation with the overdiscounting of merit aid. Our sense is coming from a flagship university with less than a 25% acceptance rate, he does not understand or appreciate the special role and responsibility of UArizona in Southern Arizona,” the letter said.

Glover expressed his gratitude for the “warm Wildcat welcome and support” from the UA community. “I also would like to express my admiration for President Robbins and my appreciation for his efforts in bringing me to the University of Arizona,” he said. 

“I regret that I will not get to work alongside President Garimella and see his vision for the UA unfold. He is a superb choice to lead this university, and I wish him nothing but the best,” Glover added. “I recognize that my departure comes soon after beginning my role and shortly before the start of the fall semester. I will work with university leadership to support my successor and ensure a smooth transition in the coming weeks.”