Eric J. Barron, president of Florida State University, has been named the 18th president of The Pennsylvania State University.
According to the Penn State Board of Trustees, the selection committee was compelled by Barron’s role leading a doctoral research university that also has a law school and a college of medicine, as well as his strategic plan to take FSU into the top 25 ranking of national public universities.
Barron will succeed retiring president Rodney A. Erickson. He will leave FSU on April 2 and is expected to begin his tenure at Penn State on May 12.
More people news:
- In March, E. Gordon Gee was named West Virginia University’s permanent president—the second time he’s been asked to lead the state’s land-grant, flagship research university. Gee first served as president from 1981 to 1985, and returned as acting president in January 2014.
- In mid March, the State Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education named James C. Williamson the next president and executive director of the South Carolina Technical College System.
- Claude Steele, former dean of Stanford University Graduate School of Education, started as executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of California, Berkeley in late March.
- Cornell University President David J. Skorton has been named the next secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He will continue his tenure at Cornell through June 30, 2015.
