UC Berkeley has initiated the search for a new executive vice chancellor and provost following the announcement of current Executive Vice Chancellor George Breslauer’s retirement.

According to Claire Holmes, the associate vice chancellor for university communications, the search involves forming a committee to identify and vet potential candidates for the position in a process similar to last year’s search for the campus’s new chancellor.

Breslauer will end his seven-year term as executive vice chancellor and provost in December. According to an article by the UC Berkeley News Center, Breslauer originally planned to retire in June but postponed his retirement in order to assist Chancellor-designate Nicholas Dirks, who will assume office in June.

Breslauer joined UC Berkeley in 1971 as a specialist on Soviet politics and foreign relations in the department of political science. He was appointed Chancellor’s Professor in 1998 and served as the chair of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies until 1994 and the department of political science until 1996. After a one year tenure as the executive dean of the UC Berkeley College of Letters and Sciences, Breslauer took the office of executive vice chancellor and provost in 2006.