University of California Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake expected to be named Ohio State president

Kristen Mitchell, Liz Young
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:02:33 +0000
Campus, ohio state, osu, presidency

University of California Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake is expected to be named the next president of OSU.
Credit: Courtesy of Ria Carlson

University of California Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake is expected to be named the next president of Ohio State, The Lantern has learned.

Ria Carlson, associate vice chancellor of strategic communications at UC Irvine, declined to comment on whether Drake was a finalist for the OSU presidency Wednesday afternoon. Carlson had said Monday she hadn’t heard anything and didn’t think Drake would want to comment, but would look into it.

OSU spokesman Gary Lewis said he did not know who the next president would be late Wednesday afternoon.

Multiple sources have told The Lantern OSU is set to announce its next president by the end of the week.

The OSU Board of Trustees was set to meet in a full public meeting Friday. That full Board meeting was moved to Thursday, and the public was notified at about 4 p.m. Wednesday.

“The full Board of Trustees will now reconvene at 4 p.m. (Thursday), with a brief executive session to be followed by a public session at approximately 4:20 p.m.,” the notice read.

According to Board minutes, personnel actions were set to be made at the Friday public meeting.

Drake was appointed chancellor of UC Irvine in 2005. Before his appointment, he served as vice president for health affairs for the University of California system for five years.

UC Irvine has more than 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, according to UC Irvine 2013 Facts and Figures.

Drake is an alumnus of Stanford University and UC San Francisco.

Drake would be the 15th OSU president. If announced this week, his appointment would come roughly seven months after former President E. Gordon Gee retired July 1.