Thomas Kent "T.K." Wetherell
President: January 6, 2003-Present
Florida State University

Born Dec. 22, 1945, in Daytona Beach, Wetherell attended Port Orange Elementary School and Mainland Senior High School, where he was active in service clubs, student government and athletics. He attended Florida State University on a football scholarship and played on the 1963-67 football teams. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in social studies education from FSU in 1967 and 1968 respectively. He earned a doctoral degree in education administration from FSU in 1974. (Go to biography...)

Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte
President: January 3, 1994 - January 6, 2003
Florida State University

Talbot ("Sandy") D'Alemberte was appointed president of The Florida State University on November 29, 1993, by the Florida Board of Regents, and took office on January 3, 1994. His grandfather attended the Seminary West of the Suwannee and his mother attended the Florida State College for Women; the two institutions were predecessors to The Florida State University.

D'Alemberte served as the fourth dean of the FSU College of Law from 1984 to 1989 and continues to teach as a member of the University faculty.

He is an active member of many legal and higher educational committees and boards, including numerous American Bar Association committees, state and regional bar associations, the American College of Trial Lawyers, the Lawyers' Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Florida Council of 100, the Business-Higher Education Forum, the Campus Compact, the Advisory Board of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, the Mildred and Claude Pepper Foundation Board of Directors, the Academic Task Force on Hurricane Catastrophe Insurance which identifies ways to provide affordable hurricane insurance coverage to all Floridians, and several FSU committees and boards including the FSU Foundation, the FSU Alumni Association, the Collins Center for Public Policy, the Caribbean Law Institute and the Seminole Boosters, Inc.

D'Alemberte was the 1991-1992 president of the American Bar Association and the 1982-1984 president of the American Judicature Society. He represented Dade County in the Florida House of Representatives from 1966 to 1972 and chaired several legislative committees. After leaving the Florida Legislature he chaired the Florida Constitution Revision Commission in 1977-1978 and the Florida Commission on Ethics in 1974-1975.

D'Alemberte practiced law with the Steel Hector & Davis law firm in Miami and Tallahassee where he first began his legal career in 1962 and was named partner in 1965.

D'Alemberte's book, The Florida Constitution, was published by Greenwood Press in 1991. He co-edited the 1990 four-volume work, The Florida Civil Trial Guide, and has authored over twenty published articles.

The numerous awards D'Alemberte has won include the 1996 American Judicature Society's Justice Award, the 1996 National Council of Jewish Women's Hannah G. Soloman Award, the 1993 Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers "Perry Nichols" Award, the 1993 Florida Academy of Criminal Defense Lawyers Annual Criminal Justice Award, the 1990 Jurisprudence Award from the Anti-defamation League of South Florida, the 1987 Florida Bar Foundation Medal of Honor, the 1986 National Sigma Delta Chi First Amendment Award, an American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences "Emmy" in 1985 for his work in open government, particularly in the opening of court proceedings to electronic journalists and the 1984 Florida Civil Liberties Union "Nelson Poynter" Award.

D'Alemberte holds honorary degrees from Cleveland State University, Hofstra University, Nova Southeastern University, Stetson University, the Universities of the South (Sewanee), of Bridgeport, and of Denver.

Born June 1, 1933, in Tallahassee, D'Alemberte was educated in public schools in Tallahassee and Chattahoochee, Florida. In 1955 he earned his bachelor of arts degree with honors in political science from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and also attended summer school at FSU and the University of Virginia. After military service as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve, D'Alemberte studied on a Rotary Foundation fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1962 he received his juris doctor with honors from the University of Florida where he was named to the Order of the Coif, served as president of the Student Bar Association, was captain of the moot court team, served as articles editor of the University of Florida Law Review and received the J. Hillis Miller Award as the outstanding law graduate.

He is the father of two grown children, Gabrielle D'Alemberte Powell, a graduate of the University of Denver Law School, and Joshua Talbot, a graduate of his father's alma mater, the University of the South, and a public school teacher in Homestead, Florida. D'Alemberte is married to Patsy Palmer, former children's policy coordinator in Florida Governor Lawton Chiles' office. She has been a journalist, legislative aide and White House staff member; she holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri in journalism and a master's degree from the Harvard Divinity School. D'Alemberte's personal interests include racquetball, tennis, sailing, reading, and flying.

1851 --- Florida Institute
1857 --- Seminary West of the Suwannee River
1863 --- Florida Collegiate and Military Institute
1865 --- Seminary West of the Suwannee River
1901 --- Florida State College
1905 --- Florida Female College
1909 --- Florida State College for Women
1947 --- Florida State University

Note: From 1857 to 1887, the school's Executive Officer was called the Principal. Since 1887 the title has been the President.