Lee Bollinger, the dean of the University of Michigan Law School and an expert on free speech and the First Amendment, will become the College's next provost in July 1994.
Bollinger will succeed Provost John Strohbehn, who is retiring at the end of next month to return to teaching and research in biomedical engineering.
Strohbehn has been the College's provost since 1987.
College President James Freedman will announce Bollinger's appointment at a general faculty meeting this afternoon. Freedman has selected Bruce Pipes, the associate provost for academic affairs and one of four final candidates for the provost job, to serve as acting provost for the next year.
"Dean Bollinger has a distinguished record of achievement as teacher, scholar, and academic administrator," Freedman said in a prepared statement. "Most of all, he is an intellectual who cares deeply about ideas and liberal education. I am confident that he will bring outstanding qualities of leadership and character to his new position."
As the top academic official, the provost is the administrator in charge of most of the College's daily operations.
The provost oversees all major divisions of the institution. These include the Dean of Students and Dean of Faculty Offices, the academic support programs such as the College's library system and the Hopkins Center, the Admissions Office, the Tucker Foundation and the three professional schools.
Bollinger cannot begin his job at Dartmouth until July of next year because of commitments to the University of Michigan.
"Rather than reopen the search next fall with uncertain prospects as to the outcome," Freedman said, "I concluded that the appointment of Dean Bollinger, effective next July, was the better long-term choice for Dartmouth."
Pipes will become acting provost on July 1 when Strohbehn steps down.
A national search for a new provost began last summer, shortly after Strohbehn announced he would step down at the end of this year. By early April a faculty search committee provided Freedman with a slate of four final candidates: Bollinger, Pipes, Daniel Fallon, the dean of liberal arts at Texas AandM University, and Daniel Bernstine, the dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
In 1973 after a year working as a clerk for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the U.S. Supreme Court, Bollinger joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School as an assistant professor. He was named dean of the law school in 1987.
At Michigan he heads a faculty of 70 and 1,200 students. In 1992, under Bollinger's direction, the Michigan Law school launched a five-year $75 million capital campaign.
Bollinger received national attention in 1989 when he banned the Federal Bureau of Investigation from recruiting at the University of Michigan. The recruiting ban was in support of 300 Hispanic agents who successfully sued the F.B.I. for ethnic bias. The University had a rule preventing companies with known biases in their hiring practices to recruit on the Ann Arbor campus.
Bollinger attended the University of Oregon as an undergraduate and got his law degree at Columbia University. Bollinger is 47 years old and is married with two children. His wife, Jean Magnano Bollinger is an artist. Bollinger has written three books including "Images of a Free Press" in 1991.
Currently he is traveling in Italy and could not be reached for comment.