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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The next president for the University of Utah is expected to be announced next week, officials said Thursday.
Three finalists have been chosen to replace Bernie Machen, who left Jan. 1 to become the president at the University of Florida. A press conference, likely with the new president, is scheduled next Thursday afternoon, Utah System of Higher Education spokesman Dave Buhler said.
The finalists announced Thursday by the Presidential Search Committee include:
--Loren W. Crabtree, a chancellor and system vice president for academic affairs at the University of Tennessee. Crabtree is the chief executive officer of the 26,000-student Knoxville campus, and since 2003, has overseen academic matters for the University of Tennessee system.
--Susan Westerberg Prager, dean of the School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles. Prager served the longest tenure of any UCLA Law School dean (1982-98) until she was appointed provost of Dartmouth College in 1998. Three years later, she returned to Los Angeles, where she is the Arjay and Frances Faring Miller Professor of Law.
--Michael K. Young, dean of the George Washington University Law School. He also has been the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence since 1998. For 13 years before that, Young was the Fuyo Professor of Japanese Law at Columbia University, where he led the Japanese and Korean studies centers.
"The committee is recommending to the Board of Regents three excellent candidates, any one of whom would make an outstanding president of the University of Utah," said Regent James Jardine, the chairman of the Presidential Search Committee.
The field was narrowed from 147 candidates from 47 states and three foreign countries.
"It is certainly a complement to the University of Utah and to our state that this search would attract such considerable interest," said Commissioner of Higher Education Richard E. Kendell, who assisted in the search.
The Board of Regents will meet in executive session, starting at 8 a.m., Thursday (April 29), to interview and discuss the finalists. A news conference that night will either reveal the new president or update the public on the status of the search.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
