The University of Chicago's Board of Trustees will act in a special meeting today regarding the election of Provost Robert Zimmer as the 13th president of the university, according to a campus-wide e-mail sent by President Ruth Simmons Thursday morning. If elected, Zimmer will succeed current UChicago President Don Randel on July 1, 2006.
Randel announced his departure from UChicago last fall and will become president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation this summer.
If elected, Zimmer will be the fourth consecutive president of UChicago who was former provost from another university. UChicago's last three presidents were formerly provosts at Yale, Princeton and Cornell, according to Larry Arbeiter, director of communications for the university.
"One great advantage is that he has two really important kinds of experience, as provost at a top university, Brown ... and he spent most of his academic career here (at UChicago)," Arbeiter said. "We have an intense academic culture that we're proud of, and he's very familiar with that."
Arbeiter added that Zimmer's name came up frequently in conversations on campus while a search committee worked to replace Randel.
"People who I've spoken to are quite excited about it, very pleased - (Zimmer's) name is one that has been mentioned for some time," Arbeiter said. "People have leading candidates; I think it's clear he was a leading candidate here for some time."
In her e-mail, Simmons highlighted the integral role Zimmer has played in the development and implementation of the Plan for Academic Enrichment.
"Under his leadership and guidance, we have expanded the faculty and? strengthened our multidisciplinary programs through initiatives," Simmons wrote, citing the Environmental Change Initiative, the Center for Computational? Molecular Biology and the Cogut Center for the Humanities.
Zimmer has also been a strong supporter of University partnerships with the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. and oversaw communication between the Medical School and its affiliated teaching hospitals in Rhode Island.
"Undergraduate, graduate, and medical students will benefit? greatly from the improvement of facilities undertaken during his term? as provost," Simmons wrote in the e-mail. "His leadership and commitment to Brown faculty, students?and staff will be missed."
Before becoming Brown's ninth provost in 2002, Zimmer was on faculty at UChicago for over two decades, holding the title of Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics. He specialized in geometry - particularly ergodic theory, Lie groups and differential geometry - and authored two books on these subjects while at UChicago, according to the university's Web site.
Zimmer also served in numerous administrative capacities at UChicago before coming to Brown, including chairman of the mathematics department, deputy provost and vice president for research at the university and for Argonne National Laboratory, which UChicago has operated for the U.S. Department of Energy since the laboratory's inception in 1946.
Zimmer graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1975. He has also served on the faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of California, Berkeley. He has held visiting positions at Harvard and at institutions in France, Israel, Australia, Switzerland and Italy.
