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New York University Announces New President to Replace John Sexton

 Andrew Hamilton, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University in England, will take over for President John Sexton in January 2016, an NYU spokesman said.
Andrew Hamilton, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University in England, will take over for President John Sexton in January 2016, an NYU spokesman said.
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Composite: DNAinfo/Andrea Swalec; Handout

GREENWICH VILLAGE — New York University announced its new president Wednesday.

Andrew Hamilton, Oxford University's current vice chancellor, will take over for NYU President John Sexton in January 2016, NYU's Board of Trustees said in a statement.

“I love NYU, and I could not be more thrilled with the selection of Andrew Hamilton," Sexton said in a statement. "I know and admire him, and I am certain he will do great things for the university."   

"It is difficult not to take notice of an institution that has proven itself again and again to be a game-changer in a field in which that is uncommon," Hamilton said in his own statement. "I am looking forward with great eagerness to working with NYU’s faculty, students, administrators, and staff, and to joining a university that is so manifestly energetic, innovative, and successful.”

Hamilton, a chemist specializing in organic and biologic chemistry, is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was previously the provost at Yale University, the board said. He and his wife have three children, all of whom live in the United States. He will be NYU's 16th president.

A committee of trustees, faculty, students and administrators reviewed more than 200 nominees over the past eight months before picking Hamilton, the statement said.

Sexton previously said he plans to teach in NYU's law school after stepping down.

Sexton has been a controversial university president. He received a vote of no confidence from multiple schools within the university a few years ago and has been criticized by opponents of the school's 20-year expansion plan within Greenwich Village, NYU 2031.

“We can only hope that Mr. Hamilton will do a better job of listening to his neighbors than President Sexton," said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, one of the expansion plan's opponents. "Under President Sexton, disagreement was simply not tolerated.  We hope that Mr. Hamilton can repair those relationships his predecessor so damaged, and work with his neighbors."

GVSHP and the expansion's other opponents, including a group of NYU faculty called the Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, won a small victory recently when the state's highest court agreed to hear their arguments against the plan. A lower court judge agreed with them early last year, but the city and the university won an appeal several months later.