Columbia University announced on Sunday that it has selected another president, as the Ivy League institution seeks to rebound from several years of upheaval.
Effective July 1, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is set to become Columbia’s next president after building a long record of leadership at some of the country’s most elite schools. She has established herself as an individual who could be amenable to assuming a more cooperative posture toward the Trump administration, appearing to walk the line on pro-Palestinian protests that have swept college campuses in recent years.
“I am honored and thrilled to join Columbia University at this important moment,” Mnookin said in a statement. “Columbia is defined by rigorous scholarship, a deep commitment to open inquiry, world-class patient care, and an inseparable and enduring connection to New York City, the greatest city in the world. I look forward to working closely with faculty, students, and staff, and with both our local and global community of alumni and friends, to advance the University’s critically important mission and to ensure that its teaching and research continue to contribute meaningfully to society.”
Mnookin will leave UW-Madison, where she has been the school’s chancellor since 2022, at the end of the academic year. She was previously the dean of the University of California, Los Angeles Law School.
The development could mark a reset of sorts for Columbia University.
The school has grappled with unrest in recent years following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Minouche Shafik stepped down as Columbia president in October 2024, after she was criticized for her handling of large-scale student protests against Israel that at times turned violent. At the time, leading congressional Republicans expressed sweeping concern that the school had failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
In the following months, tensions continued to simmer at Columbia, as it was among several schools federal funding was targeted last year by the Trump administration. Columbia and others were fined, notified of civil rights violations, or had federal funding frozen, among other punishments, due to the Trump administration’s determination that campus officials violated civil rights laws by failing to target antisemitism on campus.
In July 2025, Columbia University reached a deal with Washington that resolved the dispute, revealing it would pay over $220 million to the Trump administration and make certain reforms in order to see its federal funding restored.
Besides Shafik, the school had two other leaders during the volatile time period. Katrina Armstrong succeeded Shafik but left the school in March 2025 amid ongoing conflict with the Trump administration. Claire Shipman, who is now ceding power to Mnookin, succeeded Armstrong, serving as Columbia University’s interim president.
Mnookin has taken some positions that signal a more friendly posture toward the White House, including ending a key UW-Madison DEI program last July and warning in a New York Times interview later that year that universities must refocus on cultivating an academic environment of viewpoint diversity. Columbia University is the second-worst university in the country to attend for free speech, according to watchdog groups.
Many universities went through a period “deeply focused” on identity, when they were not focused on viewpoint diversity, she told the outlet last November.
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“I think universities should be spaces where ideas, and different ideas, embodied by people from different backgrounds, come together, and where it won’t always be comfortable, but where we will learn and do better from that engagement,” Mnookin added.
Under her leadership, UW-Madison faced campus protests similar to those at Columbia. Mnookin received criticism from pro-Palestinian protesters for not being more amenable to demands, though she allowed campus encampments protesting Israel to stretch for over a week before calling in authorities.
