University of Michigan’s Jack Hu to be UGA’s New Provost and Academic Affairs VP

University of Georgia President Jere Morehead recruited another Michigan resident to take over UGA’s no. 2 administrative position.

As reported in The Athens Banner-Herald, the university recently announced that Jack Hu, the University of Michigan’s vice president for research, will become UGA’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. He is scheduled to begin July 1.

Hu is replacing Pamela Whitten, who came to UGA from Michigan State University to take over for Morehead as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.

Whitten left her position last July to become president of Kennesaw State University. Libby Morris, director of the UGA Institute of Higher Education, has been interim provost since Whitten’s departure.

Hu has the experience “to continue elevating our national prominence in research, innovation and graduate education while building on our superior undergraduate learning environment,” Morehead said in a prepared statement.

Hu, whose academic background is in mechanical engineering and manufacturing, also holds an endowed faculty chair in manufacturing at the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering and was also associate dean for academic affairs and associate dean for research and graduate education in Michigan’s engineering college.

In recent years, UGA’s new engineering school has been UGA’s fastest-growing college, and UGA administrators have targeted it in initiatives designed to develop more research revenue.

The University of Michigan spent about $1.5 billion on research and development in the 2017 fiscal year, the second-highest total of any U.S. university, according to National Science Foundation statistics.

Hu was one of four finalists chosen by a 24-member search committee chaired by Denise Spangler, dean of the UGA College of Education, and Benjamin Ayers, dean of the Terry College of Business. Each finalist gave presentations last month at the UGA campus.

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