Kansas University provost Jeff Vitter will travel to Mississippi this week, where Ole Miss leaders are set to vote Thursday on whether to hire him as chancellor.

The Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, which governs the University of Mississippi, announced Oct. 19 that Vitter was the “preferred candidate” to become the next chancellor of Ole Miss.

The board plans a special meeting to consider hiring Vitter at 2:30 p.m. Thursday on the Ole Miss campus in Oxford, Miss., according to a board press release. A press conference to announce their decision is planned at 3 p.m.

The board will live stream the press conference online, with a link to the webcast available at mississippi.edu.

On Wednesday afternoon, Vitter will meet with students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., according to a schedule released by the board. Thursday he’ll meet with administration, faculty, other employees, alumni and students on the main campus in Oxford.

Vitter, a New Orleans native, has been KU’s provost for five years and is credited with spearheading the university’s 2012-2017 strategic plan, Bold Aspirations, and creating the KU Core curriculum. His academic appointment at KU is as a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.

Ole Miss trustees began a search for a chancellor in March after deciding not to renew the contract of Dan Jones.

Earlier this month, the University of Arkansas announced that Vitter was a finalist in that school’s chancellor search. But Vitter left that search in favor of the Mississippi opportunity, he told the Journal-World, after being announced the preferred candidate for the Ole Miss chancellorship.

Arkansas leaders ultimately voted to hire Ohio State University executive vice president and provost Joseph Steinmetz, who also has KU ties, the Associated Press reported. Steinmetz is a former dean of KU’s college of liberal arts and sciences.