The University of Nebraska Board of Regents has unanimously picked one of the university’s current campus chancellors as the priority candidate to be the next president of the university.
University of Nebraska Medical Center Chancellor Dr Jeffrey Gold will now go through a 30-day public vetting period before an expected confirmation vote, perhaps as early as the board’s next meeting on April 19th.
Gold would succeed Admiral Ted Carter, who announced in October he was leaving to become president of Ohio State and who departed at the end of last year.
Gold has an unusual background. He earned a degree in theoretical and applied mechanics at Cornell, then graduated from Cornell’s medical school before going on to be a board-certified surgeon before going into academics.
He has been the UNMC chancellor since 2014, but also did 4 years of double-duty as a chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He’s also the university’s current chief academic officer, a liaison between the University and the Regents.
Regents Chair Rob Schafer says Gold was a top candidate for president from the beginning and that as the presidential search progressed, the process became one of comparing other candidates against Gold.
UNMC student body president and Student Regent Katie Schultis says Gold is student-focused and the “biggest champion for student initiatives,” calling him a role model that I look up to and just the leader that I want to be as well.”
Governor Jim Pillen, a former Regent, issued a brief statement praising the leadership of Interim President Chris Kabourek and congratulating Gold on emerging as the priority candidate, calling him “a visionary, patient-focused leader for UNMC.”
Pillen and Gold have clashed in recent years over diversity-inclusion-and-equality as well as critical race theory.
Gold would be the 9th president of the University of Nebraska. With Nebraska at Kearney Chancellor Doug Kristensen retiring at the end of the academic year, there will be two chancellorships to fill and no chancellor with more than 3 years on the job.