UPDATE: This blog post has been update to correct an error about Bill Powers and the AAU, which I said he was leaving to lead as president. I regret the error.
The University of Texas presidential search appears to be focusing on the vice chancellor at the University of Oxford, Andrew Hamilton, according to a report in Saturday’s American-Statesman. I’m not surprised. I can think of two reasons why UT-Austin would want Hamilton as its next president. The most obvious is that UT would love to have the prestige of Oxford rub off on the campus after such a tough run with the regents and the media over the past few years. The other is that Hamilton is a chemist, the same academic discipline as former UT-Austin president Larry Faulkner.
I never thought that the regents would choose a president from one of the satellite campuses of UT (one of the remaining two candidates was David Daniel, president of UT-Dallas). The other candidate was a UT-Austin insider, executive vicepresident and provost Gregory Fenves. The selection of Hamilton, should it come to fruition, would bring to an end years of bickering among regents over the future of retiring UT-Austin president Bill Powers.
