The University of Michigan has been at something of an inflection point. Following a series of public relations issues and scandals in athletics and a misstep by former president, Santa J. Ono, who prematurely went after the Florida post before being rejected by the leadership in Gainesville, U-M had been without permanent leadership. It had elevated Domenico Grasso from Dearborn to Ann Arbor to serve as interim president, and he worked to steady the ship. But the maize and blue need a president who isn’t serving in a liminal space.
According to multiple reports, Michigan is set to hire Syracuse chancellor Kent Syverud, who had been expected to retire this summer after serving in the same capacity for the Orange.
As Bacon noted in the post above, Syverud is a Michigan alum, and thus, he gets the culture in Ann Arbor. Just as pertinent, having overseen a mix between academic and athletic institution at Syracuse, Syverud understands the importance of athletics in a university — something that Ono’s predecessor, Dr. Mark Schlissel (who had his own scandal, which led to his ousting), not only failed to recognize, even when it was made apparent to him, he refused to embrace sports as part of the Wolverine ecosystem.
Syverud originally got his undergraduate degree at Georgetown before getting two postgraduate degrees from Michigan. Here is more from MLive:
Before leading Syracuse University, he was the dean and a university professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 2006 to 2023.
Before joining Washington University in St. Louis, Syverud served as the dean at Vanderbilt Law School for eight years.
He was on the faculty at the UM law school from 1987 to 1997. He received tenure in 1992 and became an associate dean for academic affairs in 1995.
He was also a witness for UM in the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger.
He will assume the post in June 2026, and Grasso will continue to steer the ship until Syverud arrives.
