Columbia University has chosen Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as its next president, hoping to usher in a period of growth and stability after a tumultuous two years on its campus, according to two people with knowledge of the selection.
An official announcement is expected later on Sunday.
Dr. Mnookin is a legal scholar who served as the dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law before arriving at Wisconsin to lead its flagship state university in 2022. Her academic work focuses on evidence, proof, and decision making in the legal system.
Her own academic pedigree is something of a top-tier trifecta. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a law degree from Yale University and a doctorate in the history and social study of science and technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Her résumé has echoes of that of Lee Bollinger, who led Columbia between 2002 and 2023 and was a lawyer who had been president of the University of Michigan. In finding a candidate with deep roots in American academia, Columbia’s board appears to be trying to correct for its last hire, Nemat Shafik, a London economist who resigned in 2024 amid campus turmoil over the Gaza war.
At Columbia, Dr. Mnookin will find a large, complex research university that has been coping with challenges on many fronts, including cuts to its research enterprise by the Trump administration and deep divisions over how it handled a burst of student protest activity on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Mnookin also contended with student protests in 2024, charting a path that resulted in ending a student encampment while also seeking engagement with demonstrators.
Columbia’s campus was rocked by frequent, large demonstrations by students in favor of Palestinian self-determination, with some calling for the end of Israel as a Jewish state, using language that many Israeli and Jewish students found threatening.
Sharon Otterman is a Times reporter covering higher education, public health and other issues facing New York City.
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