President Mary Sue Coleman has appointed incoming Institute for Social Research (ISR) Director James S. Jackson as chair of the search advisory committee for the position of provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

Jackson—the Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics, who will become ISR director April 1—will lead the committee that will conduct a national search and prepare a list of final candidates for the position.

Paul N. Courant, who has served as the University’s chief academic officer since 2002, will step down Aug.31, when his current term ends. Courant, a professor of economics and public policy and 1996 recipient of the Arthur F. Thurnau professorship, will return to the faculty, Coleman announced last week in a memo to faculty.

“As a new president, I relied enormously on Paul to help me understand the institution,” Coleman wrote. “In particular, his budgetary expertise has been essential to our ability to maintain our momentum and invest in our highest-priority activities while making the budget cuts necessitated by sharply declining state funding. Under his leadership, our academic units have continued to innovate and grow, despite resource constraints.”

Coleman praised Courant for his work in building a diverse community, including his leadership in restructuring the admissions process following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the University’s affirmative action policies. She also commended his leadership in developing a new financial aid program, M-PACT, for Michigan students; supporting recruitment and retention efforts for women in science and engineering; and securing a partnership with Google to digitize the seven million volumes in the University Library.

“I look forward to spending serious time and thought in the service of better understanding the world that I have learned so much about in academic administration,” Courant said in a memo to deans. “Although I will miss the pace, breadth and interactions that the provost’s job brings, I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity for a different type of thoughtfulness and the student and faculty interaction that will come with this change.”