Douglas Allan Girod (born May 5, 1958) is an American educator, medical doctor, and the 18th

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

chancellor. Prior to becoming chancellor, he was the

University of Kansas Medical Center The University of Kansas Medical Center, commonly referred to as KU Med or KUMC, is a medical campus for the University of Kansas. KU Med houses the university's schools of medicine, nursing, and health professions, with the primary health science ...

's executive vice chancellor, a position he had held since February 2013. Before being promoted to the executive vice chancellor at the

, Girod was the senior dean for the

School of Medicine A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, MB ...

while dually serving as a surgeon at the

University of Kansas Health System The University of Kansas Health System, commonly known as KU Med and formerly known as The University of Kansas Hospital, is a nonprofit, academic medical center located in Kansas City, Kansas, United States, with branch hospitals and education c ...

where he began his career in 1994. He is also a veteran of the

United States Navy Reserve The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...

Biography

Education

Born and raised in Salem, Oregon, Girod graduated from the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, followed by

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It co ...

for his doctor of medicine, and completed his residency and an

National Institute of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

research fellowship at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

Career

Beginning in 1982, Girod began his 15-year career in the

where he worked at the

Naval Hospital Oakland Naval Hospital Oakland, also known as Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, was a U.S. naval hospital located in Oakland, California that opened during World War II (1942) and closed in 1996 as part of the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure program. The site ...

as a surgeon and the Director of

Otolaryngology Otorhinolaryngology ( , abbreviated ORL and also known as otolaryngology, otolaryngology–head and neck surgery (ORL–H&N or OHNS), or ear, nose, and throat (ENT)) is a surgical subspeciality within medicine that deals with the surgical a ...

. In 1997, Girod was discharged from the military honorably, ending his career as a Lieutenant Commander. In 1994, Girod left California to become a surgeon at the KU Medical Center. During his time at the KU Medical Center, Girod was a professor, department chair, senior associate dean, interim executive dean, and his most recent post of executive vice chancellor.

University of Kansas chancellor

On May 25, 2017, the

Kansas Board of Regents The Kansas Board of Regents is a body consisting of nine members that governs six state universities in the U.S. state of Kansas. In addition to these six universities, it also supervises and coordinates nineteen community colleges, five techni ...

announced Girod as the 18th chancellor of the University of Kansas. During his time as chancellor, Girod has increased the university's enrollment, established a partnership between Kansas Athletics, the

and Lawrence Memorial Health to create Kansas Team Health, a model that provides better care for student athletes and moved all healthcare professionals under the Kansas Health System's payroll. A year into being chancellor, Girod fired athletic director

Sheahon Zenger Sheahon Jay Zenger (born April 13, 1966) has three decades of experience in academic and athletic administration, development, and coaching. Zenger serves as the interim president for the University of New Haven, a position he has held since J ...

due to a lack of progress. Almost a month later, Girod hired Jeff Long as the new athletics director, tasking him to fix the football program. Long fired David Beaty at the end of the 2018 football season, ending with a 6–42 record at Kansas. Long then hired

Les Miles Leslie Edwin Miles (born November 10, 1953) is a former American football coach. He most recently served as the head coach at Kansas. His head coaching career began with the Oklahoma State Cowboys, where he coached from 2001 to 2004. Following t ...

to get the football program to become a championship program, however, he was fired on March 9, 2021, after accusations from women while he was at

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

. The next day, Girod fired Long as the athletics director. In April 2021, Girod hired

Travis Goff Travis Goff (born September 28, 1979) is an American athletics director and the 16th director of athletics for the University of Kansas. Prior to being named as Kansas' athletic director, Goff spent the previous twenty years as a development admi ...

as the new athletics director, whose first task was to hire a new football coach. Almost a month later, Goff named

Lance Leipold Lance Leipold ( ; born May 6, 1964) is an American college football coach who has been the head football coach at the University of Kansas since 2021. Leipold served as the head football coach at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (UWW) fr ...

as the next football coach. Leipold, in just his second season, led the Jayhawks to a 5–0 start for the first time since

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing ...

and also coached the team to be bowl-eligible for the first time since 2008.

Personal life

Girod is married to Susan Pirtle and they have three children. Girod and his wife live in

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas and Wakarusa Rivers. As of the 2020 census ...

References

External links

University of Kansas
profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Girod, Douglas Chancellors of the University of Kansas University of Kansas faculty University of California, Davis alumni University of California, San Francisco alumni University of Washington alumni 1958 births Living people Educators from Kansas People from Salem, Oregon United States Navy Medical Corps officers Military personnel from Oregon Leaders of the University of Kansas Medical Center