Crawford did not attend the board meeting having returned from a week-long stay at Miami to his current position as a dean with the University of Notre Dame.
The board also unanimously approved a resolution to begin contract negotiations with Crawford for a five-year employment agreement.
Miami University’s outgoing President David Hodge, who retires June 30, is paid $432,022 annually.
Board Chairman David Budig said during the meeting that Crawford’s extensive academic and college administrative experience suits what the trustees were seeking in the 22nd president of the Butler County university and its regional campuses.
“Beyond his impressive academic record he brings enthusiasm and expertise. In Dr. Crawford, we have found an exceptional match,” said Budig.
In the days leading up to the vote, Crawford held a series of public forums on the main Oxford campus and at Miami’s two regional schools in Hamilton and Middletown. At each forum he fielded questions and explained his attraction in joining the prestigious university.
Miami University officials announced last week that a nine-month search had produced Crawford as the only remaining candidate to become the university’s next president.
Crawford will start July 1.
The university spent at least $150,000 for a private search firm to track down its next leader.
Miami University is Butler County’s largest employer, with nearly 3,300 full-time employees at its main Oxford campus, and Hamilton and Middletown campuses. Total university employment is more than 4,000 workers, including part-time employees, according to Miami.
The 50-year-old Crawford was raised in Elyria, Ohio, west of Cleveland.
He earned a bachelor’s (mathematics and physics), master’s (physics), and doctorate (chemical physics) from Kent State University.
Crawford completed two postdoctoral fellowships and was a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center before joining the faculty at Brown University.
Regional campuses get new names, degree programs
In other board of trustee actions, members voted unanimously to further expand the roles of Miami’s two regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown.
The two branch schools have seen a marked increase in enrollment in recent years.
Undergraduate degrees awarded to students from the two Butler County campuses have jumped 480 percent — from 55 in 2008 to 319 in 2015, according to university officials.
Effective July 1, trustees approved a new name for Miami’s regional campuses. The academic division of each regional campus will be known as the College of Liberal Arts and Applied Science. Also, the regionals’ department of integrative studies will be renamed the department of interdisciplinary and communication studies, and the department of business technology will be renamed the department of commerce.
As part of the board’s action, six new regional campuses departments will be formed: Social and behavioral sciences; Education and society; Biological sciences; Mathematical and physical sciences; Humanities and creative arts and Languages, literatures, and writing.
The board also approved three new bachelor’s degree programs for both regional campuses: Bachelor of arts in applied communication, in the department of interdisciplinary and communication studies; Bachelor of arts in community arts, department of humanities and creative arts and a Bachelor of arts in psychological science, department of social and behavioral sciences.
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