Congratulations to professor Mabel Rice and her associates for what appears to be a highly successful search and recruiting process to find a new provost for Kansas University.

Rice chaired the university’s search committee for the provost position. It was announced Monday that Jeffrey S. Vitter had been selected for the job.

Vitter has served as provost of Texas A&M University. Before coming to Texas A&M, he was a faculty member at Brown University, a department chair at Duke University and a dean at Purdue University. He is a 1977 graduate of Notre Dame and earned a master’s degree in business administration from Duke and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University.

He brings many skills and strong experience to the KU provost’s office. There is every reason to believe he can play a major role in helping stimulate and elevate the level of academic excellence at KU.

Rice is a distinguished professor of speech, language and hearing and serves as director of the Child Language Doctoral Program at KU. This department is recognized as one of the finest in the world. It is obvious that she, as chairwoman of the search committee, and her associates were determined to recruit an individual for the provost’s office who is indeed a scholar and leader.

Vitter’s academic and research record should send a loud signal about the importance of academic excellence at KU and what will be expected of faculty members and students. This, too, is likely to have a major impact on members of the Kansas Legislature.

Congratulations to Rice and her fellow search committee members and welcome to Jeffrey Vitter and his wife, Sharon.