Northwestern University’s new president will be Mung Chiang, a former engineering professor who currently serves as president of Purdue University. The selection of Dr. Chiang follows a period of tumult at Northwestern that culminated last year with the resignation of its former president, Michael H. Schill.
In a news release Monday announcing Dr. Chiang’s selection, Northwestern praised his three-year tenure as Purdue’s president. The school said during his time at Purdue the graduation rate rose and federal research awards expanded.
Mr. Schill’s resignation last September followed a time of intense pressure on Northwestern from Republicans over allegations that the university had not done enough to protect Jewish students from harassment.
Mr. Schill, who currently serves as a professor at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law, joined a list of presidents at leading universities, ranging from Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania to James E. Ryan at the University of Virginia, who resigned amid conservative attacks over pro-Palestinian protests and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Dr. Chiang, a first-generation American, will assume his job in July at the private university based in Evanston, Ill. He will be its first Asian American president.
He had served as an engineering professor at Princeton before he joined the faculty of Purdue, where he was dean of the engineering school before becoming president.
He received bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford.
His research has focused on, among other areas, the optimization of networks, fog networks and the Internet of Things. He also has served on several federal panels, and he helped design the federal CHIPS and Science ACT, intended to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
Among his plans, Dr. Chiang said, will be to meet with a broad cross-section of Northwestern’s community to “learn about Northwestern’s distinct culture and this community of scholarly and creative minds,” according to the news release.
Stephanie Saul reports on colleges and universities, with a recent focus on the dramatic changes in college admissions and the debate around diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
The post Northwestern Names a New President After Tumult Over Protests appeared first on New York Times.
