The Board of Regents held a 
special meeting on Wednesday to 
officially appoint Dr. Santa J. Ono as 
the 15th president of the University of 
Michigan. 
Ono, 59, will begin his initial 
five-year tenure on Oct. 13 and will 
succeed Interim President Mary Sue 
Coleman, who was appointed by the 
board in January following the abrupt 
firing of former President Mark 
Schlissel. Coleman will continue to 
serve as president until Ono’s term 
begins. Ono is the current president of 
the University of British Columbia and 
has previously served as the president 
of the University of Cincinnati and 
senior vice provost and vice provost at 
Emory University. 
“I’m thrilled to join in this 
enthusiastic welcome for Dr. Santa 
Ono as president of the University 

of Michigan,” Coleman said. “From 
academics and research to health 
care, athletics and service to society, 
the University is dedicated to 
excellence. ‘Leaders and best’ is our 
way of life on all three campuses.”
According to a statement by the 
University on Wednesday, Ono’s 
appointment followed a nationwide 
search 
of 
potential 
candidates 
beginning in February, where the 
Presidential 
Search 
Committee 
hosted 
seven 
virtual 
listening 
sessions to hear community input on 
candidates. Regent Denise Ilitch (D) 
said in her statement at the meeting 
that the committee noticed integrity, 
communication and listening skills 
were among the main qualities 
community members were looking 
for in a leader. 
“It is readily apparent to me after 
getting to know Dr. Ono and learning 
about his experiences as a university 
administrator that he is the right 
person to lead the University of 
Michigan at this moment in time,” 
Ilitch said. “His vision for our future 

is exciting and we have a lot to look 
forward to. I’m telling you that it’s a 
happy damn day.”
Ono marks the first U-M 
president 
of 
Japanese 
descent 
and will receive a base salary 
of $975,000, which is subject to 
annual increases at the board’s 
discretion. Schlissel received a 
salary of $927,000 at the time of his 
termination. Ono is also entitled to 
deferred compensation of $350,000 
and residence in the President’s 
House on South University Avenue. 
 
“I am honored to serve what I think 
is the greatest public university in the 
world,” Ono said. “The University 
of Michigan is known worldwide 
as an exceptional place for learning, 
teaching, healing and service across 
this great state, across this great 
nation and around the world, and I am 
humbled and honored to be named its 
15th president.”
Daily 
News 
Editors 
George 
Weykamp and Anna Fifelski can be 
reached at gweykamp@umich.edu and 
afifelsk@umich.edu.

Santa Ono is expected to be 
confirmed as the 15th president 
of the University of Michigan by 
the Board of Regents Wednesday 
afternoon, the Detroit Free Press 
reported late Tuesday. 
Ono’s appointment marks the 
second time a person of Color 
has served as president of the 
University, after former Presi-
dent Homer A. Neal, who served 
as interim U-M president in 
1996. Ono is the first person of 
Japanese descent to serve as the 
president of the University. 
Since 2016, Ono has served as 
the current president and vice 
chancellor of the University of 

British Columbia. He previously 
served as president of the Uni-
versity of Cincinnati from 2012 
to 2016. 
Ono received an undergradu-
ate degree in biological sciences 
at the University of Chicago in 
1984 before pursuing a Ph.D. 
in experimental medicine at 
McGill University in Montreal in 
1991. Ono has received the Regi-
nald Wilson Diversity Leader-
ship Award from the American 
Council on Education, as well as 
the Professional Achievement 
Award from the University of 
Chicago, a Grand Challenges 
Hero Award from UCLA and 
the NAAAP 100 Award from the 
National Association of Asian 
American Professionals. 
The University established the 
Presidential Search Committee 
in February to survey candidates 

for the position. Regents Denise 
Ilitch (D) and Sarah Hubbard (R) 
were co-chairs of the committee, 
which included representatives 
from the three campuses and 
Michigan Medicine and sought 
input 
from 
the 
community 
through virtual learning ses-
sions and an online survey.
The hiring comes after for-
mer President Mark Schlissel 
was fired on Jan. 15 for engag-
ing in a two-year relationship 
with a subordinate over email. 
The board appointed Coleman as 
interim president that same day 
to serve until a replacement was 
found. 
Schlissel’s termination came 
after he announced he would step 
down from the role of president 
one year early in June 2023. As 
part of his exit package, Schlis-
sel was initially entitled to his 
base salary of $927,000 for two 
years, $2 million to start a lab 
and a $5,000 monthly housing 
allowance. Following his termi-
nation, Schlissel’s exit package 
was voided, but he was awarded 
a one-year sabbatical in which he 
was paid $463,000, after issuing 
a 91-word apology to the board 
back in April. Following the sab-
batical, Schlissel is eligible to 
return as a U-M faculty member 
with a salary of $185,000. 
A spokesperson for the Uni-
versity was not immediately 
available in time for comment. 
Daily News Editors George 
Weykamp and Anna Fifelski can 
be reached at gweykamp@umich.
edu and afifelsk@umich.edu.

4A — Wednesday, August 31, 2022
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

ANNA FIFELSKI & 
GEORGE WAYKAMP
Summer News Editor & 
Daily News Editor

Following the Board of Regents’ 
approval of President-elect Santa 
Ono on Wednesday, The Michigan 
Daily sat down with Ono as well 
as the co-chairs of the Presidential 
Search Committee, Regents Sarah 
Hubbard (R) and Denise Ilitch (D), to 
discuss Ono’s experience, the presi-
dential search process and more. 
This article has been edited and 
condensed for clarity. 

Interview with Presidential 
Search Committee 
The Michigan Daily: When did 
you first identify Ono as a candidate 
and how long have you been consid-
ering him?
Sarah Hubbard: We worked 
with a search firm — Isaacson, 
Miller — and part of what they did 
is helped us identify this big pool 
of candidates. So they were going 
to look at every possible candidate 
across the world. After the listen-
ing sessions, we developed the job 
description and Ono was in one of 
those very early pools of 100 candi-
dates when we started the search in 
March. 
TMD: What did you do with 
the information gathered from the 
Presidential Search Committee? 
Have members of the committee 
met with Ono? 
Denise Ilitch: What we did is we 
looked at all of the candidates that 
Sarah talked about and then we 
started an interview process that 
we did with the Presidential Search 
Committee and we narrowed down 
the candidates with the committee. 
TMD: What were the main take-
aways from the listening sessions? 
How did that impact your decision 
to select Ono?
SH: The takeaways from the 
listening sessions were the main 
attributes we wanted in a presi-
dent, primarily someone who could 
really build trust between the broad 
University community and all its 
different stakeholders. The top 
takeaway was someone who was 
capable, who could do the job and 
understood how to run a Universi-
ty. We wanted to hire someone who 

didn’t need training wheels, and 
the listening sessions really helped 
us focus on those attributes. 
DI: I would just add that he talk-
ed about being a connector of peo-
ple. One thing I took away from the 
listening sessions is that our com-
munity wants to be heard and they 
want to be listened to and they want 
to be connected with, and Ono’s a 
connector. That was really critical, 
not only in his style of leadership 
but also in the way he communi-
cates. We happened to fall in love 
with the way he communicates, 
and that he looks at communication 
in a lot of ways. 
TMD: Were there any qualities 
that members of the board were 
looking for in a new president?
SH: Something that was really 
important to me was someone who 
had presidential experience. That 
wasn’t an absolute bottom line, we 
were still interested in people who 
had provost experience and dean 
experience, but someone who had 
experience as a president for me 
was very, very important. 
DI: 
Presidential 
experience 
was really a dealbreaker. I was not 
willing to take the risk of having a 
person that did not have the expe-
rience of running an institution of 
our size and public. It would have 
been a very unusual person to make 
that exception. But for me also it 
was the healer-in-chief, someone 
who could take the situation that 
we’re in now and rebuild trust in 
our community. 
TMD: How will the board help 
facilitate the presidential transition 
and what role do you both plan to 
play in said transition? 
DI: I think it’ll be business as 
usual. We’ll try to be as supportive 
as possible. We’re excited because 
we believe Ono is a transparent per-
son, he’s a collaborator and he likes 
to work in partnerships. He has a 
servant-style leadership, so he has 
humility and he likes to ask advice 
and get help and listen. We want to 
be a strong support system to him 
and that’s what we’ll do.
SH: I think he’ll also stay in touch 
with (Interim) President (Mary 
Sue) Coleman and that transition, 
and while he wants to be respectful 
of her retirement, she wants to be 
sure he gets off on the right foot too. 
TMD: How did the presidential 

search process change following 
former President (Mark) Schlis-
sel’s termination? Were you already 
considering 
candidates 
when 
Schlissel announced his retirement 
in October? 
SH: 
Because 
Schlissel 
had 
already announced his retirement 
we started looking at search firms 
and started preparing for that pro-
cess, but it wasn’t until he actually 
left that we really moved forward 
with the search committee. We cer-
tainly didn’t expect to have to move 
as quickly as we did. But when we 
needed to do it, we did. 
DI: Our timing was really good 
because there’s like five differ-
ent presidential searches going on 
right now across the country, and 
so we’re really happy that we didn’t 
have to compete with them. We 
got a little bit ahead of that, and we 
were able to get the best candidate. 
TMD: What was the biggest 
challenge in the presidential search 
process? 
DI: Confidentiality. Most people 
don’t understand, it’s really about 
the other candidates, not just the 
candidate-elect, but those that also 
were interviewed to protect their 
privacy because they all have cur-
rent jobs and everything. 

Interview 
with 
President-
elect Santa Ono 
TMD: How has your experi-
ence as president of the University 
of Cincinnati and the University of 
British Columbia prepared you to 
lead a public research university 
with a Big Ten athletics program? 
How has your experience at Cin-
cinnati shaped your relationship 
with The Ohio State University?
Santa Ono: Oh, that’s a pretty 
funny question. That’s an in-state 
rivalry. So like I could ask you 
‘What’s the relationship between 
Michigan and Michigan State?’ I 
would say that the University of 
Cincinnati shares that rivalry that 
Michigan has with Ohio State. 
You’re not looking at a Buckeye fan. 
As you probably know, the 
University of British Columbia is 
gigantic — there are about 71,000 
students enrolled there. It’s a very 
comprehensive research university, 
like Michigan. I would say there 

Read more at michigandaily.com

News

Dr. Santa Ono is expected to be confirmed 
at surprise Regents meeting

Santa Ono to be named 15th 
President of the 
University of Michigan

NEW PRESIDENT

President-elect Santa Ono, Presidential 
Search Committee chairs discuss 
priorities for new administration
The Michigan Daily sits down with President-elect Santa Ono 
as well as Regents Sarah Hubbard and Denise Ilitch

NEW PRESIDENT

Trigger Warning: This article 
contains mentions of suicide and 
attempts of suicide, mentions of sexual 
assault and mentions of police violence.
“It’s official: Santa is coming 
to town,” “I’m okay with our new 
president being a Sagittarius” and 
“Santa’s meme game is fire” are only 
a few of the memes circulating on 
Instagram and Twitter following 
the appointment of Dr. Santa Ono 
as the University of Michigan’s 15th 
President at a special Board of Regents 
meeting July 13. 
Ono’s appointment as the 15th 
President of the University comes 
after a four-month search by the 
Presidential Search Committee, led by 
co-chairs Regents Sarah Hubbard (R) 
and Denise Ilitch (D). In an interview 
with President-elect Ono, Hubbard 
and Ilitch emphasized the impact the 
community listening sessions had on 
the presidential search. Hubbard also 
said Ono was in one of the first pools 
of candidates that the committee 
began considering in March. 
Zackariah Farah, U-M alum and 
Research Assistant at Michigan 
Medicine, said he is impressed by 
how Ono interacts with the students 
at the universities he has led, the 
University of British Columbia and 
the Univerisity of Cincinnati. 
“I’ve heard that he is very 
accessible and that he loves talking 
to students, and in my four years at 
U-M, I only saw Mark Schlissel in 
person once, which is pretty crazy,” 
Farah said. “(I’m looking forward to) 
just having someone who is willing 
to mingle and (be) friendly with 
the people that they’re supposed to 
represent and lead, and I hope that is 
what Santa Ono is going to bring to the 
table.”
Farah said that while he’s excited 
for Ono to take over as president, 
he’s left with questions about how 
Ono’s administration will handle the 
problems at the University. 

“When it comes down to (it), 
I’m mostly interested in ‘How is 
his administration going to reduce 
emissions? How is his administration 
going to prevent sexual assault cases 
and actually take accountability for 
the massive cases of sexual assault 
that have happened on campus 
with Dr. Anderson, for example, or 
Professor Conforth?’” Farah said. 
“And I’m also really interested to see 
how his administration will treat 
the workers of this university. I was 
very disappointed by how (former 
President) Mark Schlissel threatened 
our unions on campus.”
During Ono’s presidency at the 
University of Cincinnati, Samuel 
Dubose was fatally shot by UC police 
officer Ray Tensing during an off-
campus traffic stop on July 19, 2015. 
In response to the shooting, Ono 
announced the review and reform 
of the UC police department and 
appointed a new Vice President for 
Safety and Reform, Robin Engel. 
Though Tensing was tried twice on 
charges of murder and voluntary 
manslaughter, both ended in mistrials 
and Tensing did not face criminal 
charges. 
In 2016, after a student on the 
University of Cincinnati campus 
committed suicide, Ono spoke out on 
Twitter about his past struggles with 
mental health and his own attempts 
at suicide. Ono also attended an N15 
fundraiser, named for the statistic 
that one in five people will suffer from 
mental illness, to help raise money 
for teenagers struggling with mental 
illness.
Kirsten 
Herold, 
LEO-GLAM 
President, Public Health lecturer and 
a member of the Presidential Search 
Committee, declined to participate 
in a formal interview to maintain 
the confidentiality of the presidential 
search. In an email to The Michigan 
Daily, Herold stated she was honored 
to be part of this year’s search 
committee. 
“Here is what I think I can say: I 
was honored to be asked to serve on 
the committee,” Herold wrote. “We 
had a much more diverse search 

committee than most universities 
have (typically Deans and wealthy 
donors only), and we all took the 
process very seriously and worked 
extremely well together. We all 
attended the listening sessions and 
took the input to heart. The search 
firm, the UM staff support and the 
joint leadership of Regents Hubbard 
and Ilitch made it an efficient and 
collaborative process. I am very 
pleased with the final result and am 
excited to be working with the new 
president in the years to come.”
Eshana Bhangu, a third-year 
student at UBC and President of Alma 
Mater Society (AMS) — the student 
government at the Vancouver campus 
— said that Ono was receptive to 
student needs and often worked with 
AMS on student issues. 
“There’s this discipline regulation 
that applies to all students that is 
essentially under the President’s 
Office … and after the president’s 
approval, it was published.” Bhangu 
said. “However, (AMS) hadn’t been 
consulted on that. And we reached 
out to Dr. Ono on a Friday evening, 
letting him know that ‘Hey, we 
weren’t consulted, and we aren’t 
happy with this change because it 
affects a lot of students,’ and Dr. Ono 
didn’t hesitate from rescinding his 
approval of the change in regulation 
and said that nothing will go forward 
without student consultation on that 
case.”
Bhangu also said Ono had a 
positive relationship with students 
on the UBC campus and enjoyed how 
involved he was with the campus.
“He’s quite a good sport,” Bhangu 
said. “He’s very pleasant to interact 
with. He’s very accessible to students. 
I think students just love that about 
him … and he’s just very present on 
our campus. One of our (campus) 
bucket list items is ‘Get a Selfie with 
Santa,’ so you’ll often see him across 
campus, and he will not even think 
twice before stopping and taking 
selfies with like a hundred students 
crowded around him.”

Campus reacts to Santa 
Ono’s appointment as 15th 
UMich President
Campus looks forward to changes under new President

TAYLOR PACIS/Daily

NEW PRESIDENT

ANNA FIFELSKI & 
NIRALI PATEL
Summer News Editors 

ANNA FIFELSKI & 
GEORGE WAYKAMP
Summer News Editor & 
Daily News Editor

Read more at michigandaily.com

‘It’s a happy damn day’: Dr. Santa 
Ono officially appointed as 15th 
president by Board of Regents

NEW PRESIDENT

Ono will take office Oct. 13 with base salary of $975,000

ANNA FIFELSKI & 
GEORGE WAYKAMP
Summer News Editor & 
Daily News Editor

BECCA MAHON/Daily

