Andrew Hamilton, Yale University’s provost, has been nominated as the next vice chancellor of the University of Oxford. The selection of Mr. Hamilton, a professor of chemistry, marks the second time in recent years that a leading British university has picked its chief executive out of Yale’s office of the provost. In 2003, Yale’s provost, Alison F. Richard, a professor of anthropology, became vice chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
If Mr. Hamilton’s nomination proceeds as expected, he is scheduled to assume his new post on October 1, 2009. He would succeed John Hood, a former head of the University of Auckland, whose tenure since he took office, in 2004, has been marked by controversy over governance issues.
Mr. Hamilton, a native of Britain, received his doctorate at Cambridge and has been a professor at Yale since 1997. His nomination comes less than a week after Oxford announced a $2.5-billion fund-raising campaign that is the largest in British university history. —Aisha Labi
