New KU Chancellor Named

A surgeon who has served as the University of Kansas Medical Center’s executive vice chancellor is the new top overseer of the University of Kansas.

The Kansas Board of Regents on Thursday named Dr. Douglas Girod as the successor to retiring Bernadette Gray-Little.

Gray-Little has been chancellor since 2009 and announced last September she would retire this summer.

As the medical center’s executive vice chancellor since February 2013, Girod oversaw educational, research, patient care and community engagement efforts of the university’s medicine, nursing and health professions schools. Those schools have more than 3,300 students, 2,100 faculty and 4,000 staffers.

Girod also served as the medical school’s interim executive dean until early 2014.

He joined the University of Kansas Medical Center faculty in 1994 and has served in the Navy Reserve.]