Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud will become the next president of the University of Michigan, filling a vacancy created by the departure of Dr. Santa Ono.
Syverud, who announced last year he would leave Syracuse at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, will replace interim President Domenico Grasso.
The leadership change at Michigan follows Ono's decision in May 2025 to step down from the presidency in an attempt to secure the top position at the University of Florida. Ono, who had led Michigan since 2022, was unsuccessful in that bid, leaving Grasso to serve as interim leader.
Syverud has led Syracuse since June 2013, when he succeeded Dr. Nancy Cantor, who departed to become chancellor of Rutgers University-Newark. His tenure has spanned more than a decade of significant changes in higher education, including the COVID-19 pandemic and evolving debates around campus diversity and free speech.
Before arriving at Syracuse, Syverud served as dean of Washington University's School of Law in St. Louis. His earlier career included leadership of Vanderbilt University Law School, a clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and service as a trustee of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust, a $20 billion fund established by BP to address claims from the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
