Kent D. Syverud, dean of the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, brings experience and local perspective to chancellor position.
Heavy clouds hung down from the sky, coating the Syracuse University campus in a layer of shady gray. The rain was falling from them fast and hard. The air was filled with an invisible thickness; its warmth coating the skin of students huddled underneath their umbrellas. In the midst of all this meteorological misery, Kent D. Syverud, who had just been announced hours earlier to the Syracuse community as the next chancellor of the university, stood at the podium in Hendricks Chapel, clad in a tie emblazoned with a bright printed SU logo.