The University of Michigan Board of Regents has selected Kent Syverud as the university's next president. He was elected unanimously, and the university said he will start a five-year term by July 1.
Syverud, who earned a master's degree in economics and a law degree from the University of Michigan in the 1980s and later served on the U of M law school faculty, has led Syracuse University in New York since 2014.
Syverud will be the University of Michigan's 16th president — and the fifth person to run the university in less than five years.
Mark Schlissel was fired as president in 2022 after the regents determined he had an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate.
Mary Sue Coleman, a former president of the university, was brought on as interim president.
Santa Ono was hired to lead the university later that year.
He announced he was leaving in May 2025 in an ill-fated effort to seek the presidency of the University of Florida.
Domenico Grasso, a professor of public policy and engineering, and formerly the chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn campus, has been serving as U of M's interim president since then.
In a Sunday message to the U of M community announcing the meeting to appoint Syverud, the Board of Regents called his election a "historic moment" for the university.
In a brief media availability after his selection, Syverud told reporters his experience has prepared him for one of the major challenges facing U of M and other universities: the Trump administration's threats to cut higher education funding.
"I've been navigating that for quite a while at Syracuse," he said. "And I suspect I'm going to learn more at Michigan by listening to people."
Syverud declined to speak about another big challenge ahead at Michigan: a series of investigations and leadership changes in its athletics department.
"It would be wrong for me to comment on that because there's a process going on within the university, and I'm not part of that process because I won't be president until the end of this semester," Syverud said.
Syverud will be taking the reins at the University of Michigan as the school pursues a years-long legal case against students and alumni who protested the university's refusal to divest from Israel in the wake of that county's war in Gaza. U of M said the demonstrations broke a university policy barring "violent conduct" — a claim the protesters reject.
Under Syverud's leadership, Syracuse University has also sought to punish students involved in similar protests. Syverud said many of the demonstrations were "encouraged from Iran" and largely the work of outside agitators.
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