Economic Development: SC loses another leading academic

SC Biz:

University of South Carolina Provost Mark P. Becker has been named president of Georgia State University in Atlanta, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia announced Thursday.

Becker, 50, is executive vice president for Academic Affairs and provost, the University of South Carolina in Columbia He will be the seventh president of Georgia State University.

Becker will assume his new post in January 2009, according to Board of Regents Chair Richard Tucker. He replaces Carl V. Patton, who in November 2007 announced his intention to retire once a new president had been selected.

“This has been an important presidential search for a star in American research universities,” said Tucker. “Dr. Becker tremendously impressed the campus search committee and the regents with his thinking regarding Georgia State’s future.”

University System Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. said that Becker’s appointment would entrust Georgia State “to an individual poised to build upon the great strides the university has made under Dr. Patton’s 16 years at the helm.”

Becker has been provost at USC since 2004. Prior to his current appointment, from 2001 to 2004, Becker worked for the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, as a professor of biostatistics, an assistant vice president for public health preparedness and emergency response and as dean of the School of Public Health.