Santa Ono announced his plan to leave the University of Michigan this summer, divulging that he is the sole finalist for a job leading the University of Florida.
We reflected on Ono’s time at Michigan with two writers who’ve followed his career for several years: David Jesse, a senior writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Jamal Watson, Ph.D., editor of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
Ono’s path to the U-M
Watson came into contact with Ono in 2015, when he wrote a profile about Ono’s leadership at the University of Cincinnati. He notes that before coming to Cincinnati, Ono had held positions at Johns Hopkins University and Emory University, and had also taught at Harvard. Watson said Ono appeared dedicated to his scholarship and committed to elevating universities to national recognition.
During three days shadowing Ono in Cincinnati, Watson was taken by his connection with the student body.
“I was really surprised by how popular he was on the campus of the University of Cincinnati,” Watson said. Ono “engaged young people with social media and so they were stopping him like he was a rock star, asking to take photos and selfies with him.”
Ono "made his name and his mark in American higher education as the president of the University of Cincinnati,” Jesse said.
Through his outgoing personality and strong presence on social media, Jesse noted that Ono quickly gained a reputation as the "Twitter president".
But it wasn’t just Ono’s social media presence that made him stand out.
“At the same time, [Ono] really found a way to do something that I think a lot of presidents find really increasingly hard to do,” Watson said, “which was to connect with his student base, ... keep his research going, and find a way to really satisfy and keep faculty and staff happy. That's not always an easy task to do.”
However, his tenure at the University of Michigan would pose challenges unlike any Ono had faced previously.
Ono has served as president at UM for almost three years, succeeding Mark Schlissel, who was dismissed due to an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. During Ono's presidency, the university was also undergoing significant reforms to its policies on reporting and investigating sexual misconduct, following the revelation of a scandal involving former athletic doctor Robert Anderson.
“[Ono] was here for a variety of really tough times,” Jesse said. “It started about six months or so into his tenure, when we had the strike with the graduate students and it just got tougher and tougher.”
Protests on campus and DEI
Shortly after a damaging five-month strike by the Graduate Employees' Organization ended, Ann Arbor became a flashpoint for the debate over campus speech. Protests erupted on Michigan’s campus in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. What started as rallies evolved into a student encampment on the Diag, a central part of the campus landscape with high foot traffic.
The university faced demands to divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel at the same time as groups sympathetic to Israel demanded the university protect Jewish students from harassment, and First Amendment advocates pressed the administration to defend legal political speech.
The conflict in Ann Arbor mirrored the global tensions, Jesse said, and the divide between those supporting each side of the conflict.
“Each side was calling for the university to be on their side, to speak out against the other side,” Jesse said. “And it was a real struggle for university presidents, including Ono, to decide on where to land, and he didn't make people happy. He was kind of stuck.”
After President Donald Trump’s reelection, the University of Michigan was included on a list of 60 universities being investigated for antisemitic discrimination and harassment — part of a Republican-led crackdown stemming from claims that universities were not taking strong enough action against pro-Palestinian protesters, Jesse said.
During Ono's time at the University of Cincinnati, he advocated for inclusiveness and equity on campus, Watson said.
Ono was "really clear about economically-disadvantaged students, even poor white students,” Watson said. “It wasn't just racialized, it was really thinking about equity and diversity in this kind of broader framework.”
Earlier this year, under Ono's leadership, the University of Michigan announced plans to roll back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives following the Trump administration's rejection of such programs. Watson said that was part of a larger trend of universities retreating from DEI initiatives that, while predictable, happened surprisingly quickly.
“It's all happening at the same time and the magnitude of wiping out entire offices, firing entire staffs,” Watson said.
Ono’s decision to move to Florida did not come as a surprise, Watson said.
"There's no expectation," said Watson, of developing or sustaining DEI programs at the University of Florida. It's a state "which has outlawed, under [Governor] Ron DeSantis, everything related to DEI for him to even worry about any of these things.”
Background reading
UM President Santa Ono only finalist for President at University of Florida
