The Ohio State Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday morning to hire the first woman president of the university.

Karen A. Holbrook, 59, the senior vice president of academic affairs and provost for the University of Georgia in Athens, will begin her tenure at OSU Oct. 1, said Jim Patterson, the chairman of the board and leader of the 18-member presidential search committee.

Holbrook’s annual salary for her five-year contract with OSU will be $325,000, a raise from former President William “Brit” Kirwan’s salary of $275,000.

“The search committee reviewed well over 100 names, narrowing the list to about 50 names and meeting face-to-face with more than a dozen individuals,” Patterson said. “… We were impressed by the quality of people we met and, given Ohio State’s needs at this point in time, believe that we found the best of the best – and the perfect fit – in Dr. Holbrook.”

Holbrook served as the dean of the graduate school at the University of Florida from 1993 until she left for the University of Georgia in 1998. She holds a doctorate in biological structure from the University of Washington, and she has an undergraduate and master’s degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin.

Patterson said Holbrook’s science background played a key role in her selection.

“One aspect of Dr. Holbrook’s background was especially important, and that is experience with academic medical centers, medical research and biotechnology,” Patterson said. “Medicine is an important pat of our university and biotechnology is critical to the future of Ohio State and the State of Ohio.”

During her remarks to the board, Holbrook emphasized the importance of universities generating their own funds without relying on the state for support. Holbrook said she will meet with Gov. Bob Taft, who has been criticized for not doing enough to aid higher education, at 3:30 today.

“I don’t think any university can simply look to the legislature for funding,” Holbrook said.

Holbrook said she was committed to continuing to promote the academic plan during her time at OSU.

“I strongly support it. … I am impressed that our academic plan recognizes that we are ‘bigger,’ but that our goal is to promote ‘better’ and the first year report shows we are on track,” Holbrook said. “The plan has the right vision, the right elements and a sense of purpose.”

Holbrook, who was previously courted by four other state universities during her time at Georgia, said OSU is her final stop.

“I can unequivocally say I have come here as my last career move,” she said.

This spring Holbrook withdrew her name from consideration for presidential searches from Arizona State University and the University of Alabama. In 2000, Holbrook also turned down the top spot at the University of Florida and the University of Kentucky, according to an article in The Red and Black, the student newspaper at the University of Georgia.

Holbrook will join a growing number of women presidents and chancellors leading Big Ten Universities. They include Mary Sue Coleman, who was named president of the University of Michigan last month; Katherine C. Lyall, president of the University of Wisconsin; Sharon S. Brehm, chancellor of Indiana University at Bloomington; and Nancy Cantor, the chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Women also serve in the top positions at Princeton University, Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Eddie Pauline, president of the Undergraduate Student Government, said he looks forward to working with Holbrook in the fall.

“She’s exactly what this place needs,” Pauline said. “I think the neat thing about her is, being a provost she has a better idea how to strategize about a lot of things. She knows exactly how to accomplish her goals.”

Holbrook and her husband, James, have one son, named James also, who is a student at the University of Georgia.

Holbrook will replace Edward Jennings, who took over as the interim president July 1, after former President Kirwan left to assume the chancellorship of the University of Maryland School System.