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CORVALLIS - Sabah Randhawa, who has been interim provost and executive vice president at Oregon State University on two separate occasions, on Friday was named to the full post at the conclusion of a national search.

OSU President Ed Ray said he received positive feedback from the campus community and felt that Randhawa was a solid choice for his executive team.

"Sabah has proven himself to be a highly effective and well-liked leader," he said. "I feel confident that his range of experience in OSU's academic areas will serve us well in this important position."

The provost and executive vice president at OSU serves as the chief academic officer for the university, stands in for the president during his absence, and is responsible for the continuing development and implementation for the strategic plan.

As provost, Randhawa will oversee OSU's 11 academic colleges, the Graduate School, the OSU Extension Service, the University Honors College, and OSU Extended Campus. The deans and directors of those programs will report directly to him, as well as the vice provosts for Academic Affairs and International Programs, Information Services, Student Affairs, and the OSU-Cascades Campus.

Randhawa served as interim provost for nine months in 2002-03, during the search process that brought Ed Ray to campus as OSU's 14th president. The former provost, Tim White, was interim president during that time. Randhawa again was appointed interim provost in April of 2004 when White was named president of the University of Idaho.

Before taking on the interim provost and executive vice president position, Randhawa served as vice provost for academic affairs. He has been a faculty member at OSU for more than 20 years - much of it in the College of Engineering, where he headed the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering from 1993-99. Randhawa was associate dean of engineering for two years before being named vice provost.

He also served as interim dean of OSU's College of Business.

Randhawa was instrumental in helping the university evolve the "2007 Redesign" process into the strategic plan, Ray said. That process involved hundreds of faculty, staff, students, alumni and others, who provided input on new directions and opportunities for the university.

Today OSU's strategic plan has focused the university on five theme areas that will "direct everything we do, from curriculum to fund-raising," Ray said. "Sabah deserves a great deal of credit for his work on the strategic plan, and in advancing all of our academic units," Ray said. "He is one of the most thorough and thoughtful people I have met and those traits will serve him well in the role of provost and executive vice president."

Randhawa is a 1976 chemical engineering graduate of the University of Engineering and Technology in Pakistan. He also has a master's degree from OSU, and a Ph.D. from Arizona State University - both in industrial engineering.