Biologist and AAAS Board Member
Chosen to Lead Ohio State University

AAAS Board Member Karen A. Holbrook, a biologist, will take up a new position this fall as president of Ohio State University, the nation's second-largest public research university.

"Ohio State has chosen its new president well and wisely," said AAAS CEO Alan I. Leshner. "As a member of the AAAS board since 2001, Dr. Holbrook has put her intellect and her grasp of the broader social issues at our service, and has helped to lead the organization in addressing the realities of a changing world."

Holbrook, who will leave her position as the University of Georgia's senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the end of September, has spent her career at public universities, the institutions she referred to in her acceptance speech as, "vibrant, exciting and ever-changing, because they have both the mission and charge to be relevant, to serve society and to offer solutions in an increasingly complicated and complex world."

In remarks issued on July 25 when Holbrook's presidency was announced, Ohio State Board Chairman James F. Patterson noted the qualities that had made Holbrook a top contender for the job.

"Across the board, Dr. Holbrook best met our search criteria," Patterson said. "She brings boundless energy along with integrity, confidence, intellect and judgment, all coupled with superb interpersonal and communicative skills."

Founded in 1870, Ohio State "stands especially tall among land-grant institutions," said Holbrook, the institution's first woman president. "But by having this breadth and this expansive an enterprise...Ohio State University also has a major responsibility to use these resources in ways that make a difference, to leverage such resources in times of constrained budgets, and to reformulate and restructure our activities with new partners to make the most of them and extend them in new ways."

During Holbrook's time at the University of Georgia, she focused on linking the budget process to performance measures, and oversaw the creation of the university's new Office of Institutional Diversity, two new colleges—the School of Public and International Affairs and the College of Environment and Design—as well as the Faculty of Engineering and the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute.

She also encouraged undergraduates to take part in the university's research efforts, and provided support for commercializing research findings produced by university faculty.

—Coimbra Sirica

27 August 2002