The incoming chancellor, Jennifer L. Mnookin, will take the helm on August 4, next Thursday. That’s 18 days before the start of the academic new year, August 22. (You celebrate Academic New Year’s Eve much like regular New Year’s Eve, except that instead of staying up past midnight drinking and carrying on, you mark the occasion by going to bed early: it’s a school night.) The UW says that Mnookin will be UW–Madison's 30th leader, though her administration will be its 32nd. Both Edward Birge and David Ward MS’62, PhD’65 had two stints leading the UW. Birge was acting president from 1900 to 1903 and then more-than-acting from 1918 to 1925. Ward was chancellor from 1993 to 2000 and then reprised as acting chancellor from 2011 to 2013. (It’s also possible Mnookin will be the UW’s 31st leader and 33rd administration, depending on whether you count John Weaver ’36, MA’37, PhD’42, who assumed the UW presidency in 1971 during the establishment of the UW System. Before Weaver, the president headed the Madison campus; beginning with Weaver, the president heads the whole UW System.) Mnookin will also be the fourth woman to lead the UW, following Donna Shalala, Biddy Martin PhD’85, and Rebecca Blank. The former dean of UCLA’s law school, Mnookin will be the first attorney to serve as the UW’s chancellor since Robben Wright Fleming LLB’41 in 1967.