Former Kansas University Chancellor Gene Budig will lead the search for a new West Virginia University president, the university’s Board of Governors announced Friday.

Budig was WVU’s president from 1977 to 1980.

“(WVU) is essential to the success of the state and the nation. It is one of America’s finest land-grant universities with an enrollment of nearly 30,000 students. It has a long and distinguished record in energy research,” said Budig, KU’s chancellor from 1981 to 1994 and president of baseball’s American League from 1994 to 1999.

The 15-member search committee will find a replacement for Mike Garrison, who recently resigned amid a master’s degree scandal involving the governor’s daughter. The search committee also will include West Virginia faculty, staff, students and administrators.

The university plans to select a new president by April.

Interim WVU President C. Peter Magrath, who will advise the committee, said Budig’s involvement would assure that the process will be “conducted with the highest integrity and produce a sterling list of prospects” for WVU’s board of governors.

“He not only knows public higher education from the inside; he has, as a former president of WVU, a deep love and understanding of this university and of West Virginia,” Magrath said in a statement.

Budig also said he was eager for the rest of the committee to form.

“It was an honor for me to serve as president of (WVU). I am confident the search committee will produce outstanding candidates, men and women who are very interested in the presidency,” said Budig, in a phone interview Friday with the Journal-World.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.