A Candidate May Be Hard to Find (but the clock is ticking)

President Drake is stepping down at the end of this academic year. The Regents' search committee to replace him last met on March 7. But there was no unveiling of his replacement at the subsequent meetings of the board March 19-21. And no announcement of a replacement has been announced since. In fact, the search committee has no new meeting scheduled.

EdSource has a story about the search:

...UC’s board of regents is looking for the next person to fill the role and replace President Michael V. Drake, who plans to step down at the end of the academic year. But in the months since the search began, the job has only grown more complicated and pressured as a result of Donald Trump’s election and his policies affecting funding, racial diversity, student protests and many other aspects of higher education.

“I think the university is dealing with more significant challenges all at the same time than they probably have in the last 50 years, 60 years,” said John Pérez, the former state Assembly speaker who served on the university’s board of regents for a decade, including a stint as chair, before stepping down last year. “My friends on the regents have a difficult task to find the person to lead through this moment.” ...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2025/as-university-of-california-searches-for-new-president-trumps-policies-make-the-position-more-difficult/729986.

Perhaps what's most interesting about the story is what isn't there. There's no mention of even a rumor that there are some top candidates in the mill.