U. Mich. regents okay Chodorow as finalist

The University of Michigan Board of Regents unanimously accepted the recommendation of Penn Provost Stanley Chodorow as one of four finalists for Michigan's presidency on Friday, according to Michigan spokesperson Julie Peterson. Chodorow will visit Michigan tomorrow. The Board of Regents, acting as the Presidential Search Committee, will interview Chodorow in a public interview from 9 to 11 a.m. Chodorow will then attend a town meeting from 2 to 4 p.m., where he will answer questions from Michigan's community. A public reception will follow the town meeting, and then an invitation-only social event will be held later that evening. All four finalists will visit Michigan, each participating in a set of identical day-long events. The official final list of presidential candidates includes Dartmouth College Provost Lee Bollinger, University of California at Berkeley Provost and Vice Chancellor Carol Christ and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Provost and Vice Chancellor Larry Faulkner. But the Regents are allowed to add candidates to the list at any time during the selection process. "[The Presidential Search Advisory Committee] has developed four extraordinary candidates, all of whom I am convinced will be presidents of major research universities within the next few years," Regent Lawrence Deitch said at Friday's meeting. According to Peterson, the Regents will meet following the finalists' campus visits to decide what the next step in the selection process will be. The Regents hope to select a president by Thanksgiving to replace former Michigan President James Duderstadt who left the university in June, Peterson said.