Pasco-Hernando State College selected Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Eric Hall as its interim president Tuesday, following the controversial resignation of former president Jesse Pisors.
Hall was appointed to the department in 2021 by Gov. Ron DeSantis and has frequently spoken in favor of the governor’s leadership.
Hall, who previously served as the state’s first senior chancellor at the Florida Department of Education, was one of four finalists for the presidential position in the school’s 2023 search, which ultimately selected Pisors.
From 2019 to 2021 at the Department of Education, Hall oversaw the Florida College System under then-Chancellor Richard Corcoran.
Hall is the latest in a series of presidential picks with ties to Tallahassee. In the past two months, Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University selected former state lawmakers.
Last week, Florida A&M University selected Marva Johnson, a lobbyist with Charter Communications, as its next president. Johnson, who previously served on the state Board of Education, faced pushback from the school’s students and alumni over her lack of higher education leadership experience and concerns of what one prominent alumnus called “undue manipulation.”
Corcoran, also a former speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives, now leads New College of Florida after being selected by a DeSantis-appointed board of trustees.
Prior Pasco-Hernando finalist Gilbert Evans, general counsel at St. Johns River State College, made a case to the board that he should be named president, but was not selected.
The third prior finalist, College of Central Florida vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, Saul Reyes, was contacted but declined the invitation to be considered because “the short-term interim appointment with no guaranteed length of time was not in my best interest,” he told the Tampa Bay Times.
“I have nothing but respect for the faculty and staff of PHSC,” he added.
Hall’s unanimous selection was initially met with silence by the more than 100 onlookers gathered at the meeting, though much of the crowd gave him a standing ovation when he reentered the room after the vote.
The board will vote at its next meeting whether to make his title permanent.
Speakers at the meeting raised concerns regarding Pisors’ abrupt resignation after what they called a flawed analysis of the school’s enrollment and retention during his 18-month tenure.
“What was treated as an enrollment and retention crisis appears to be based on a questionable, difficult-to-understand report with no identifiable author or clear source,” said Monica Mills, who serves on the school’s foundation board. “This report was the sole basis for pressuring Dr. Pisors to resign.”
Trustee chairperson and DeSantis appointee Marilyn Pearson-Adams said earlier this month that the report originated from the state Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. DeSantis appointed Hall to the department in 2023, when it went by another name.
DeSantis‘s office did not respond to questions about whether the report was provided by the state DOGE team.
The assertion that PHSC had the second largest decline in student enrollment among the state’s 28 public colleges between 2022 to 2024 was calculated using certificate-seeking students. Limiting enrollment to degree-seeking students only, PHSC‘s enrollment actually increased by 6% over the past two years, according to state data. That’s still the sixth slowest growth rate among Florida public colleges.
The report also said that nearly 500 students from the prior year had yet to register with the school for the 2025-26 school year. However, registration is still underway, and students tend to register at the last minute, Mills said.
Vice President for Student Affairs Chris Bibbo said enrollment for next year was up 16%, well above the state average.
Bibbo said the school does not have a unified way to track student retention — a key issue in the board‘s criticism of Pisors — but was creating a new system to address the issue.
Another point of contention was the school’s inability to produce timely enrollment updates to the board, according to Pearson-Adams’ letter.
Chief Information Officer Thomas Hull said new student information tracking software had only recently finished rolling out after a nearly two-year process.
“We’d want to use this dashboard to see data that matters to us as a board before making decisions,” Pearson-Adams said.
Speakers also raised concerns over potential retribution against employees who spoke out against Pisors‘ treatment from the board.
Jessica White, dean of retention and student life, was terminated by the school after she spoke out at a board of trustees meeting following Pisors‘ resignation.
Employees felt “afraid that the institution they have poured their hearts, their time, and extra hours into is not just being damaged, but dismantled,” White said at the May 6 meeting. “If speaking the truth puts us at risk, what does that say about who we are becoming?”
Days later, White said she was informed that she’d lost her job.