Jeffrey S. Vitter, selected by the state college board as the preferred candidate for Chancellor of the University of Mississippi, speaks with medical students at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015, in Jackson, Miss.

Kansas University now has a search committee in place tasked with finding KU’s next provost. Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little shared names of the chairman and committee members in a memo to campus.

She said the committee will have its first meeting in early December, and that national advertisements for the job should be appearing soon. Committee chairman is Steve Warren, professor and investigator in the Life Span Institute. Here are the other members:

Michael Branicky, Dean, School of Engineering; Tammara Durham, Vice Provost, Office of Student Affairs; John Ferraro, Chair, Speech Language Hearing department at KU Medical Center; Joshua Hackathorn, Steamfitter, Facilities Services; Aleah Henderson, Doctoral Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Kissan Joseph, Professor, School of Business; Paul Kelton, Associate Dean for the Humanities, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; Mechele Leon, Chair, Theatre department; Julie Loats, Director, Center for Online & Distance Learning; Susan Lunte, Distinguished Professor, Chemistry; and Jessie Pringle, Student Body President.

Gray-Little said in the memo she was confident the search would attract top candidates from across the country. “This is an exciting and important search for the University of Kansas,” she wrote. “We have made great progress implementing our strategic plan, Bold Aspirations, and will look to our new provost to continue that progress.”

Jeff Vitter is leaving KU to become chancellor at the University of Mississippi. Sara Rosen, senior vice provost for academic affairs, will become KU’s interim provost beginning Jan. 1.

I sat down with Gray-Little Friday, and the provost search was one of the things I asked her about. Watch for my conversation with the chancellor story in the Journal-World sometime this weekend.

• Dean of libraries search: In other hiring news, another still-open search is that for a new dean of libraries. Four candidates visited KU in late October-early November. Search committee chair Saralyn Reece-Hardy, Spencer Museum of Art director, referred me to the provost’s office for an update on the process but I’ve yet to hear back. I’ll let you know when I get any more information.

• Key diversity administrator: We wrote about this hire weeks ago, but recently I’ve had a couple sources mention that she’ll be a key player in KU’s minority recruitment and retention efforts, which are getting extra attention since the town hall forum on race. DeAngela Burns-Wallace, assistant vice provost for undergraduate studies at the University of Missouri, will be Kansas University’s next vice provost for undergraduate studies. She should be on campus early in the spring semester.

• OMA director search: In case you missed the article earlier this week, three finalists for the position of director of KU’s Office of Multicultural Affairs are coming to campus next week. Festus Addo-Yobo, director of Black Programs in the division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at New Mexico State University, will give a public presentation at 11 a.m. Monday at the Kansas Room in the Kansas Union, 1301 Jayhawk Blvd. The other two finalists will be named closer to their talks.

• Reach me by email at sshepherd@ljworld.com, by phone at 832-7187, on Twitter @saramarieshep or via Facebook at Facebook.com/SaraShepherdNews.