Dec. 16 Northwestern’s board of trustees announced today that Williams College president Morton Owen Schapiro will become NU’s next president in September 2009.

Schapiro, 55, will succeed current president Henry Bienen, who plans to retire at the end of August.

“It will be difficult to leave Williams, one of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges, but this is a tremendous opportunity to go to one of the best major research universities in the country,” Schapiro said in a university press release. “I very much look forward to being there and getting to know the Northwestern community.”

Bienen, who did not play a role in the selection, said he approved of the committee’s decision.

“I think he is a superb choice and I look forward to working with him during the transition,” Bienen wrote in an e-mail to The DAILY. “I am confident that he will have a very positive impact on Northwestern in the coming years.”

In the release, Board of Trustees chairman Patrick Ryan lauded Schapiro’s “passion for education and experience fostering cutting-edge interdisciplinary teaching and research.”

Schapiro is an economics professor and noted scholar on the economics of higher education.