Bollinger Picked To Lead Columbia

University of Michigan President Lee C. Bollinger has accepted Columbia University’s invitation to become their 19th president, according to the Michigan Daily.

The recommendation of Columbia’s presidential search committee awaits a vote from the university’s trustees, which could take place at a meeting scheduled for this weekend.

A member of the Columbia search committee told the Daily yesterday that the committee voted Monday to recommend Bollinger to the university’s trustees.

University of Michigan Regent Andrea Fischer Newman told the Daily that Bollinger is Columbia-bound.

“My understanding from talking to one of the other regents is that he told us he was going to Columbia,” she said.

The recommendation comes several months after Bollinger, who was a finalist in Harvard’s presidential search this spring, said that he planned to remain at Michigan.

“I have said before and say now that I have no intention of being a candidate in other presidential searches,” he told the Detroit Free Press in May. “I am deeply engaged and focused at the University of Michigan . . . and it is my intention to remain at the university for many years.”

After Harvard’s presidential search committee selected Lawrence H. Summers in March, Michigan’s Regents initiated several measures to encourage Bollinger to stay in Ann Arbor, including planning for private donors to supplement Bollinger’s salary and deciding to renegotiate his contract.

Media speculation about Bollinger’s recommendation for the Columbia post took off on Monday.

The Columbia Spectator and the Michigan Daily, the daily student newspapers of those respective universities, reported that Bollinger might be under consideration, citing sources close to the search.

“We knew it was coming for some time,” Newman told the Daily. “My colleagues and I have received calls from the members of the Columbia search committee, so I was aware that this was very serious.”

Though he was a finalist for the Harvard search, committee members here decided that Bollinger, 55, was too old—they wanted a president who would have the time to create a lengthy legacy at Harvard.

Bollinger’s lack of a Harvard degree was also a notable stumbling block.

Bollinger was also a finalist in Princeton’s presidential search, which concluded in May with the selection of Shirley H. Tilghman.

Columbia’s presidential search committee, consisting of seven trustees, five faculty members and two students, formed shortly after Columbia President George Rupp ’56 announced his resignation in March. Rupp will be stepping down at the end of the current academic year.

Bollinger graduated from Columbia Law School in 1971.

—Wire reports were used in the compilation of this article.

—Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.