Richard Lyons, Former Business School Dean, Will Be U.C. Berkeley’s New Chancellor

Richard Lyons, an economist and a former dean of the business school at the University of California, Berkeley, will be the university’s next chancellor, the university announced Wednesday.

Lyons, a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, was chosen for the job in a lengthy selection process after the school’s current chancellor, Carol T. Christ, announced that she would retire this summer. The University of California Board of Regents voted unanimously on Wednesday to make the choice official. Lyons will take over on July 1.

“It’s one thing to find a person with the appropriate academic and research credentials, the necessary leadership experience and an understanding of what it takes to lead a successful research university in the public setting,” Michael Drake, the president of the University of California, said during the board meeting. “It’s quite another to find a candidate who brings all of that, along with a deep understanding of the landscape in California and an intrinsic love for U.C. Berkeley itself.”

Lyons’s appointment as the university’s 12th chancellor comes as colleges across the country are facing turmoil on campus over free speech, racial and political diversity, and affordability.

Protests over the war in Gaza, and accusations of antisemitism on campuses in particular, have pushed leaders of some of the country’s top universities into the spotlight, where they have faced a barrage of criticism from students and faculty, as well as from politicians.

Though Berkeley is a public institution with a storied history of protest, Christ has largely avoided becoming the center of similar controversies. But recent incidents have tested the university.