Columbia University has agreed to hire the leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to become its next president, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Ivy League school has selected Jennifer Mnookin, who has led UW-Madison since 2022, to take the reins at Columbia sometime this year, the person said.
Mnookin led Wisconsin through a tumultuous period in higher education and rose to the top of a large candidate pool because of her success navigating polarized politics in Wisconsin and dealing with the federal government, the person added. Before leading UW-Madison, she was dean of UCLA’s law school and, before that, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
