TK Wetherell Steps Down ((Maybe))

((HT: WCTV/Tallahassee Democrat-Blackburn))

Florida State President T.K. Wetherell is declining to discuss a report published this afternoon that he will announce his resignation at Wednesday’s trustees meeting.

The Associated Press, citing two unnamed sources, said Wetherell will be telling the board that he wants to retire.

There have been rumors circulating on campus that the colorful Wetherell, 63, was planning to step down after 6 ½ years as president at his alma mater. He has said repeatedly during the past two weeks that he is focused solely on preparing the university’s budget for Wednesday’s trustees meeting.

“The president said he doesn’t want to discuss his personal plans,” FSU spokeswoman Browning Brooks said.

Wetherell has received treatments for prostate cancer, but his doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville last week gave him “a clean bill of health,” according to the AP report.

“I think his health is good,” Brooks said.

Tallahassee attorney Jim Smith, chairman of the board of trustees, also did not want to discuss his longtime friend’s plans.

“T.K. is a dear friend of mine and I’m going to let T.K. make whatever statement he wants to make on Wednesday,” Smith said.

In March, Wetherell led a vigorous campaign on behalf of the State University System for improved funding from the Legislature, which was threatening to slash FSU’s budget by as much as $72 million for the coming fiscal year.

Instead, FSU took a $43 million cut in revenue from the state – for a total of $82 million in reductions over the past three years. FSU last week unveiled a proposed budget for the 2009-10 school year that calls for as many as 200 faculty and staff layoffs.

A former politician who became speaker of the House, Wetherell spearheaded funding of the FSU University Center, to which his name is attached. He was president of Tallahassee Community College from 1995 to 2001.

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