PROVIDENCE — Jack R. Warner, Rhode Island’s higher education commissioner, will not become chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which announced yesterday that it has chosen a Florida university president for the post.

John C. Cavanaugh, president of the University of West Florida, in Pensacola, will succeed Judy G. Hample as chancellor of Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities, a Pennsylvania higher education statement said.

Warner was one of three original finalists for the job.

Warner became Rhode Island’s commissioner in 2002 after more than 30 years’ teaching and administration work with the Massachusetts public college system. He earns about $135,000 a year. He advises the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education and runs the Office of Higher Education, which manages and supports Rhode Island’s three public colleges: the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island.

“I’m very pleased that the agenda we’ve had in Rhode Island was enough to help make me an attractive candidate to such a large and complex system as Pennsylvania’s,” Warner said yesterday. “I have been happy in Rhode Island and am certainly committed to continue to do the work I have been doing here.”

Warner, who was recruited to apply for the Pennsylvania position, said he is not looking for another job.

Pennsylvania’s current system chancellor is paid about $325,000 a year and is leaving to become president of the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

— projo.com and Journal staff reports