Princeton University has found a replacement for its current provost and Penn's president-elect Amy Gutmann, Princeton officials announced Monday.
Christopher Eisgruber, a professor in Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and the University Center for Human Values, will take over for Gutmann when she assumes the Penn presidency on July 1.
In addition, Eisgruber is the director of Princeton's Program in Law and Public Affairs and has served on search committees to select a new dean of admissions and a new dean of the Wilson School.
"I am simply delighted that Chris Eisgruber has agreed to take on the responsibilities of provost," Princeton President Shirley Tilghman said in a press release. "He has all the qualities to be an exceedingly effective provost, as Amy has been, and I look forward to working with him."
As provost, Eisgruber will be responsible for overseeing all academics at Princeton, which includes advising the president on the university's budget.
Tilghman directly selected Eisgruber, whose appointment was approved during the Feb. 20 meeting of Princeton's Board of Trustees.
"President Shirley Tilghman began the search for a successor to Amy Gutmann immediately after Provost Gutmann announced that she was accepting an offer to become the president of Penn," Princeton spokeswoman Patricia Allen wrote in an e-mail interview.
Eisgruber looks forward to serving as provost at Princeton and has a short time to learn a great deal about the position.
"I have a great model to learn from and a tough example to live up to," Eisgruber said of his predecessor. "It's very much the case that what I'm going to be trying to do for the next few months ... is to learn as much as I can from her."
Eisgruber has not yet formulated any goals for his term as provost. "My plan right now is to listen to people around the university and hear what they think is important, and get a better sense of the parts of the university that I don't know things about," he said.
Eisgruber graduated from Princeton in 1983 and later attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. He received his J.D. at the University of Chicago Law School, where he served as editor in chief of The University of Chicago Law Review. Following a U.S. Supreme Court clerkship, he joined the faculty at New York University Law School before teaching at Princeton.
