UI selects interim president

A senior administrator at the University of Idaho was named Tuesday as interim president to serve while state officials look for a permanent replacement for departing President Tim White.

Steven Daley-Laursen, dean of the College of Natural Resources, was selected Tuesday by the Idaho State Board of Education and introduced at a news conference in Moscow. He was chosen from among four finalists.

He’ll serve as president while a search committee is formed and candidates are identified to replace White. That could take as much as a year.

White is leaving at the end of June, after nearly four years on the job, to become the chancellor of the University of California-Riverside.

Daley-Laursen, 56, said he would try to continue working on a long list of priorities already established at the UI, including a plan to expand its law school to Boise, develop certain research areas and improve graduate education.

Daley-Laursen earned master’s and doctoral degrees in forest science from the UI, and worked as a professor and administrator at Montana State, the University of Montana and the University of Minnesota.

He took over as dean of the College of Natural Resources in August 2002.