As chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the past three years, Jennifer Mnookin negotiated some tough deals.
In one, she forged a compromise with pro-Palestinian students on the campus of the flagship state university, persuading them to peacefully remove their encampment protesting the Gaza war. In another, she helped lead negotiations with the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature, resulting in $800 million in state funding being released in exchange for ending some diversity programs in the university system.
As a lawyer and the daughter of a renowned legal expert in conflict resolution, Dr. Mnookin didn’t shy away from the bargaining table. She listened, made concessions and took some heat. In the end, she won not only admiration from the leadership at the University of Wisconsin, but also from the trustees at Columbia University, who just picked her as the next president of the Ivy League school.
“Her reputation is that she is a healer, brings people together, listens to diverse points of view and tries to find solutions that will work for everyone,” Jeh Johnson, the co-chair of Columbia’s board of trustees, said in an interview on Monday. “And given the diversity and diversity of thought at Columbia, that was a quality of general value to us.”
Like the University of Wisconsin, Columbia is facing difficult times, and a politically complicated situation, as it navigates a $200 million deal with the Trump White House that required several concessions to restore more than $400 million in research funding. Its campus remains divided over its response to Gaza war protests and it has had four presidents since 2023. It also needs a leader who can bring the university together and move it forward.
Friends and supporters of Dr. Mnookin, 58, who were interviewed on Monday said that her experience and talents make her the right person, at the right time, for that daunting task.
Dr. Mnookin has the ability to smooth tensions by “being highly consultative and very thoughtful about where the institution needs to go and having people come along to get it there,” said Joan Gabel, the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, who during her previous job as the president of University of Minnesota became friends with Dr. Mnookin.
Not only that, she said, “but she may be the smartest person any of us know. And given who we know in this work, it’s not an empty compliment.”
In its December 2023 deal with the Wisconsin State Legislature, the University of Wisconsin yielded ground in some areas to secure funding for employee wage increases and to break ground for a new engineering building. In exchange, the university restructured diversity offices and positions and froze new administrative hires focused on diversity, among other changes.
That led to pushback from the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus and some students, who felt the university had sold out the interests of students and staff members of color in exchange for state funding.
Dr. Mnookin responded by emphasizing “an atmosphere of inclusion for everybody” on campus, a message that resonated, said Amy Bogost, the president of the Universities of Wisconsin board of regents. And then she built new programs focused on making college more affordable, regardless of race.
Dr. Mnookin had said at the time that “compromise is never easy, and this compromise is far from perfect, but I continue to believe this pathway will permit us to hold onto our core values — including our firm commitments to diversity and belonging — while also allowing us to move forward.”
Michael Schill, a close friend and the former president of Northwestern University, said that he saw the episode as an example of her leadership style.
“She will be a principled pragmatist,” he said. “She’s not an ideologue. Although she’s guided by principles, she also is a pragmatic leader and will do what is needed to protect and ensure the future of her institution.”
Dr. Mnookin has spent her lifetime in and around the academic world. Her father, Robert Mnookin, is a professor who served as the chair of the program on negotiation at the Harvard University Law School. In her own education, Dr. Mnookin managed a hat-trick of prestige universities, attending Harvard as an undergraduate, Yale University for law school and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a doctorate in the history and social study of science and technology.
In 1994, she married a political theorist and professor, Joshua Foa Dienstag; the couple have two grown children, Sophia and Isaac. She has spent decades as a law professor and then academic administrator, first at the University of Virginia School of Law, and then at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, as a professor and dean. In 2022, she became the leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Her father said he and his wife, Dale Mnookin, knew for the past few months that their daughter was under consideration for the Columbia job. “Columbia is quite a challenge,” he said, but he added that he knew Jennifer “has the values and the skills to make a contribution.”
“I found it pretty obvious from a pretty early age that she was going to no doubt be an academic,” he said. “And I think what’s really interesting is that she has obviously developed the skills to also be a successful academic leader and administrator.”
In 2020, Jennifer donated a kidney to her father, which is still going strong. “It’s a really good kidney,” he said.
Dr. Mnookin’s lifetime in academia has led her to have strong relationships with many people at high levels of university leadership, which friends say will serve her well in her new position. It was also a quality that impressed Columbia’s board, Mr. Johnson, the co-chair, said.
Charles Lee Isbell Jr., the chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, served as provost under Dr. Mnookin in Madison. He said that she likes to hear from everyone before making a decision.
“She’s deliberative,” he said. “She wants to understand what the possibilities are.” He said that she also cares, like a lawyer, about the details of arguments and language. “In fact, if I had to put it down to a single thing about her personality, what drives through, is that she cares about the argument and getting the argument right.”
Christopher L. Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University, said that he was so glad when he heard the news of her selection that he sent an email to Columbia “expressing my extraordinary enthusiasm.”
“I hope that the university comes together and supports her, because the success of any university president is critically dependent on that,” he said. Higher education, he added, needs a strong Columbia, and “she can’t do it all alone, no matter how good she is.”
Sharon Otterman is a Times reporter covering higher education, public health and other issues facing New York City.
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