In an announcement last Tuesday, the NCAA appointed its new president — University of Washington President Mart Emmert.

Emmert, who is slated to be the fifth president in the history of the NCAA, will be sworn in Nov. 1 this year to serve a five-year term. He is leaving the University of Washington after spending almost six years as president and thirty years in higher education.

The NCAA has been in search of a new replacement for former president Myles Brand, who passed away in September last year.

Emmert said after the official announcement that he intends to continue the Brand’s work.

“When Myles Brand became president, along with the leadership of all of the presidents of the members, there was a new era that came, and that was the era of academic accountability and the promotion of academic success among our student-athletes,” Emmert said during a press conference last Tuesday.

The announcement that Emmert will take over the top spot has come after months of speculation over possible candidates for the position. University President Mary Sue Coleman was believed to have been considered for the NCAA presidential slot, but Coleman denied the rumors, saying in January that she was not a candidate.

She did, however, suggest in an October 2009 interview with The New York Times that the next NCAA president should be the president of a university with Division I athletics, which the University of Washington has.

“The NCAA has, for more than a century now, had the responsibility of making sure that the interest and welfare of student-athletes is its foremost priority,” Emmert said at the press conference. “And it’s my intention to carry on with that tradition.”

On Oct. 26 last year, the NCAA presented Coleman with a notice of inquiry that signified the start of an investigation into possible NCAA violations by the University football team. The NCAA alleges that the football program violated rules regarding the number of coaches permitted to work with student-athletes and the limit of mandatory practice hours.

The four-month investigation, which ended in Feburary, concluded that the University’s football program committed five violations of NCAA rules and regulations. The University will appear before the NCAA's Committee on Infractions in August.