The University of Michigan has selected C. Cybele Raver, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Vanderbilt University, as its next president, U-M announced on Aug. 18.
Raver, who is anticipated to start on Dec. 1, will become the 17th — and the second woman — president of the university. She succeeds Domenico Grasso, who was named U-M's president in May after Kent Syverud, the university's original pick for the job, withdrew after being diagnosed with a form of brain cancer.
Mark Bernstein, a U-M regent who heads the presidential search committee, said Raver's accomplishments are "unrivaled" and called her a "transformational leader" in an interview with the Detroit Free Press on Aug. 17.
"I couldn't think of anybody better" for the
job, Bernstein said.
Raver was selected by the U-M Board of Regents after a national search that started in May. Bernstein said the field of candidates was "extraordinarily impressive" and was "perhaps even more competitive than the first phase of the search" when Syverud was picked. He said the candidates included sitting presidents of major universities, provosts and some nontraditional, compelling candidates.
The candidate list was not publicized but multiple sources with direct knowledge of the decision told the Free Press that former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan was among the candidates who were considered. Those people requested anonymity because they weren't allowed to publicly discuss details.
The best job, and also 'the most challenging'
Raver, who has served as Vanderbilt's provost since 2021, arrives at U-M at a consequential moment for the university. Over the past five years, U-M's athletic programs have faced cheating probes, federal charges stemming from an alleged hacking scheme, an assault investigation, outside law-firm investigations and lawsuits.
Tensions on campus remain high after multiple protests in recent years over the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Bernstein said he and others made clear to Raver when they made the offer that "this is the very best job in higher education in the world and also the most challenging."
He said that Raver is excited about the scope and scale of the University of Michigan, its public mission and the university's impact on the state of Michigan and society more broadly.
"Michigan’s scale and impact across research, education, economic growth and public service are unmatched, and I’m eager to build on its remarkable legacy," Raver said in a news release. "I look forward to working alongside faculty, staff, students and alumni to lead Michigan forward with clarity and confidence."
What Raver accomplished at Vanderbilt
Bernstein said Vanderbilt is without a doubt one of the most successful stories in higher education in the last five years, when Raver was there.
In her five years as provost of the Nashville-based private university, she has expanded the university's research enterprise, with Vanderbilt surpassing $1 billion in annual research expenditures; launched the College of Connected Computing, the university’s first new college in more than 40 years; expanded Vanderbilt’s academic footprint to New York City; San Francisco; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and West Palm Beach, Florida, and recruited eight new deans, the news release said.
Raver will need to use that recruitment experience as U-M's president, as she's inheriting a university facing significant leadership turnover. She'll select a new athletic director when Warde Manuel steps down at the end of the year, as well as a new chief executive of Michigan Medicine after that leader departs in December for Vanderbilt Health (Bernstein said Raver told him that her recruiting Michigan Medicine's leader to Vanderbilt proves she can do this). U-M also has an interim chief financial officer and a short-term general counsel, Bernstein said.
Moving fast and taking risks
Bernstein said Raver moves fast and decisively.
"That's going to be a change," he said.
Bernstein said he and Raver talked a lot about the increasing metabolism of a university: To move faster, to take more risks and to build a team "that embraces an approach that moves quickly, thoughtfully and in a unified way to advance a mission," he said. "That is something that stood out in our conversations with her and was confirmed during referencing."
Raver is also a notable scholar, he said.
Her research on children's development, education policy and poverty has attracted more than $24 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and others, the news release said.
Before joining Vanderbilt, Raver was a deputy provost at New York University and held faculty roles at the University of Chicago and Cornell University, the news release said. She earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University.
"There has been this assumption that you have to have a nontraditional candidate to be transformative and implement change in higher education," Bernstein said. "I think with Cybele you get both: Someone who, on paper, has a very traditional background and pathway to the presidency but along the way has done extraordinarily transformative work."
He said Raver has the unanimous support of the board and has a five-year contract that's very similar to Syverud's. Syverud was offered a $2 million base salary.
"There is an enthusiasm for her that I've never seen before on our board and a deep sense of optimism, confidence and comfort in her," he said. "She's just a very kind and decent, high integrity, high character person."
The board will hold a special meeting on Sept. 1 to take a formal vote.
Duggan, meanwhile, had been the subject of widespread speculation about his next career move after ending his independent campaign for Michigan governor in May. He announced on Aug. 14 that he was joining Honigman, a prominent business law firm headquartered in Detroit.
Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Regent tells why Vanderbilt provost was chosen to lead U-M | Exclusive
