Virginia Hinshaw, who has served UC Davis for the past six years as the second-in-command provost and executive vice chancellor, has been appointed chancellor of the University of Hawaii's flagship Manoa campus on Oahu.

Hinshaw is slated to begin her newly announced, five-year appointment July 1, after the UH Board of Regents unanimously approved her nomination at a March 15 meeting.

UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef congratulated Hinshaw and, at the same time, announced that the campus would immediately begin preparations to appoint an interim provost and executive vice chancellor and to search for a permanent successor.

UH President David McClain nominated Hinshaw from four finalists selected out of a field of 126 applicants. Among those finalists was Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, former chancellor of UC Merced and before that a UC Davis administrator. McClain praised Hinshaw as "the complete package: a scholar of distinction and a transformational academic leader."

As chancellor at UH Manoa, Hinshaw will serve as the chief executive officer responsible for providing both administrative and academic leadership to the campus of a little more than 20,000 students and 5,035 faculty and staff.

The five-year contract for Hinshaw, an internationally noted virologist and expert on influenza, also includes appointment as a full professor in the College of Natural Sciences and the John A. Burns School of Medicine. She will receive an annual salary of $350,016 and a $2,000 monthly housing allowance.

"The goals and values of this university, which match my own, are really why I'm here today," Hinshaw said at a March 16 news conference on the Manoa campus, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. "Clearly this university is highly accomplished in many areas, particularly in research, but obviously aspires to be among the most impressive, highly respected universities. Working with folks here to make that aspiration a reality is tremendously exciting to me."

And exciting to her new campus community, as well. "On campus, she was resoundingly the people's favorite," Janet Yoshida, president of the UH Alumni Association and a search committee member, told the Star-Bulletin. "She has a sensitivity to the culture and understands that we have a host culture."

As provost at UC Davis, Hinshaw has served as the campus's chief academic and financial officer. Her responsibilities include the oversight of the campus's $2.3 billion budget, and overall responsibility for the UC Davis Health System; campus operations, including resource management, planning and policy development; and strategic leadership in planning, coordinating and implementing academic direction and programs.

Among her many accomplishments at UC Davis, Hinshaw initiated and led the development of the campus's first strategic plan for budget planning, assessment and communication.

Hinshaw also holds joint appointments at UC Davis as a professor of virology in the UC Davis schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine.

"I do want you all to know that UC Davis has captured my heart and mind in so many ways," Hinshaw said in a statement released last week. "This university truly is a wonderful place and, most definitely, a 'dynamic institution on the rise.' Serving as the provost and executive vice chancellor has been both an exciting and fulfilling experience. ... I know that UC Davis will continue to enjoy great success in its future -- and I will share in that joy, in mind and spirit if not in body."

Vanderhoef said in a statement last week: "I couldn't be happier for Virginia that her many talents and extraordinary ability to inspire and engage people were so readily recognized by the University of Hawaii. With the benefit of Virginia's guiding hand, good things are sure to happen at the UH Manoa campus."

Meanwhile, the chancellor said he expects to launch a national search later this spring for a new provost, and it is his intention to have someone permanently on board by July 2008.

Hinshaw joined UC Davis in 2001. Prior to that, she served as vice chancellor for research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.