The story has been updated with comments from Regent Michael Behm and information on the Jan. 12 Board of Regents special meeting.
ANN ARBOR, MI — The next University of Michigan president is a UM alumnus and New York resident.
Kent Syverud, chancellor of Syracuse University, will be the next UM president and will replace interim President Domenico Grasso, sources close to the presidential search process said.
Syverud has served as the 12th chancellor of Syracuse University since January 2014, according to his Syracuse University College of Law profile.
The university previously announced in August 2025 Syverud will step down from his chancellor role at the end of the 2025-26 school year, Syracuse.com reported.
The UM Board of Regents will have a special meeting to formally elect the next university president at 1 p.m. Monday, Jan 12.
“He’ll be terrific,” UM Regent Michael Behm said. “He’s just who we’re looking for to lead the university.”
Behm called Syverud a “fearless listener” and said he is interested in “achieving great things” across the three campuses.
“He takes meetings with anyone and everyone, which is something I think that we sorely miss from a leader at UM,” Behm said. “He has a track record of imagining goals and making them reality.”
Before leading Syracuse University, Syverud was the dean and a university professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 2006 to 2013.
Before joining Washington University in St. Louis, Syverud served as the dean at Vanderbilt Law School for eight years.
He was on the faculty at the UM law school from 1987 to 1997. He received tenure in 1992 and became an associate dean for academic affairs in 1995.
He was also a witness for UM in the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger.
The 2003 case upheld UM Law School’s limited use of race in admissions, as the majority held that admissions policies that favored underrepresented minorities did not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause as long as other factors were taken into account on an individual’s application.
Read more: Despite SCOTUS affirmative action ban, University of Michigan still seeks diversity
Syverud received his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and his master’s and law degrees from UM.
He was a law clerk for Judge Louis Oberdorfer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor after receiving his UM degrees. He practiced litigation and insurance law at the law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., from 1985 to 1987, before returning to UM as a faculty member.
Grasso, past chancellor of the Dearborn campus, has been interim president since May 2025, when former President Santa Ono stepped down in an attempt to become president of the University of Florida.
Syverud will be the fifth president to lead this decade.
Former President Mark Schlissel served for seven and a half years, from July 2014 to January 2022, until he was fired for engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a university employee.
Former President Mary Sue Coleman returned in an interim capacity for nine months until Ono became president. He led UM for a little over two and a half years, from October 2022 to May 2025, until he stepped down and Grasso entered the role in an interim capacity.
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