Charles M. Vest, the provost of the University of Michigan, has been named the new president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He will assume the post October 15, succeeding Paul E. Gray, who has been president since July 1980. Gray will become chairman of the MIT Corp. when Vest takes office.
During his career at Michigan, Vest, 48, has served in a wide variety of academic and administrative roles. From 1986 to 1989, he was dean of engineering and helped develop a new $100 million industrial technology institute. For the last 19 months, he has served as provost and vice president of academic affairs at the school, where he is also chief budget officer. Vest's selection by MIT's 65-member board of governors was the culmination of a long and unusually difficult search process during which two leading candidates withdrew their names, and a third accepted the post, only later ...
