Chicago Tribune | Brown provost is tapped to lead U. of C.

A search committee for the University of Chicago has recommended the current provost of Brown University to become the new president of the Hyde Park institution, the school announced today.

Robert J. Zimmer would succeed Don Michael Randel as the 13th president of the U. of C. The Board of Trustees is expected to ratify his selection at a special meeting Friday.

Randel, president of the university since 2000, is leaving this summer to become president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Zimmer is a mathematician who was a U. of C. faculty member for more than two decades before leaving four years ago for Providence, R.I., to become provost of Brown.

"The search committee was seeking an accomplished scholar with proven managerial skills," U. of C. board Chairman James Crown said in a prepared statement. "At the same time, we were looking for a leader who could understand and appreciate the unique role that the University of Chicago plays among the great research institutions of the world.

"In Bob Zimmer, we found someone who excels on all fronts," Crown said.

Zimmer, in a prepared statement, said he was "honored" to return to Chicago's South Side "to advance the University in the framework of its enduring values, and to enhance the partnerships that enable the University to contribute in important ways to the communities in which we live."

As provost, Zimmer is Brown's chief academic officer and second in command after the president. A U. of C. news release said that while at Brown, Zimmer played a key role in strengthening its research program, recruiting outstanding faculty and enhancing its graduate and medical schools.

Zimmer also led efforts to enhance Brown's network of academic affiliations with such institutions as the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass.; the Rhode Island School of Design; the Trinity Repertory Theater Company; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and hospitals affiliated with the Brown Medical School.

He is the first presidential nominee to have been a faculty member at Chicago since Hanna H. Gray, who served as president from 1978 to 1993 and remains a faculty member, the university said.

While at U. of C., Zimmer served in such administrative roles as chairman of the mathematics department, deputy provost, and finally, vice president for research and for Argonne National Laboratory.

Zimmer is a specialist in geometry, author of two books and more than 80 mathematical research articles, and recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship. He served on the Board of Mathematical Sciences of the National Research Council from 1992 to 1995, and was on the executive committee from 1993 to 1995.

The nominee held the title of Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics at Chicago before leaving for Brown, where he has been the Ford Foundation Professor of Mathematics in addition to being provost.

He earned his bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1968 from Brandeis University and a doctorate in mathematics in 1975 from Harvard University. He joined the U. of C. faculty as an L.E. Dickson Instructor of Mathematics in 1977. He was also on the faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy from 1975 to 1977, and at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1981 to 1983.

Assuming he is appointed president, Zimmer will return to Chicago with his wife Terese S. Zimmer and their youngest son Alex. They have two other sons, David and Benjamin, who live in Cambridge, Mass.