Lee Bollinger does not know when he will step down as president of the University but plans to continue business as usual in Ann Arbor until that time comes.

"I"ve been working extremely hard on Michigan matters," said Bollinger, who was announced as Columbia University"s new president last weekend. Prior to being selected, Bollinger missed a faculty meeting and several sessions of the First Amendment class he teaches while traveling to New York for interviews with Columbia"s search committee.

"It is true that the past two weeks have been filled with other matters," he said yesterday. "I haven"t devoted the amount of time to matters here that I would ordinarily. Otherwise I am fully engaged and intend to be until I leave."

The outgoing chief executive has not announced whether he will leave Michigan before July 1, when he will take over for retiring Columbia President George Rupp.

"That"s really up to the regents. I"ll just be discussing with them over the next few weeks," said Bollinger, a 1971 graduate of Columbia Law School. "I"m here really to do what"s best for the institution."

University of Michigan Regent Olivia Maynard (D-Goodrich) said the regents plan to hold several more special meetings to discuss when an interim president might take over for Bollinger and whom that person might be.

"We are going to move sooner rather than later," Maynard said.

The regents usually convene once a month to discuss the University"s affairs. They held a special meeting last Monday, two days after Columbia"s trustees approved Bollinger as the university"s 19th president.

After Harvard University chose former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to be its president in March, Bollinger said he did not anticipate leaving Michigan for Columbia.

"I do not intend to be a candidate," Bollinger told The Michigan Daily in March. "I am deeply committed to Michigan and I have no expectation of leaving."

"As far as I was concerned, I would be staying," he said yesterday. "There were other searches under way at that point, several of them actually, and I really was not interested."

But when the opportunity to serve as president of his alma mater arose last month, Bollinger said he could not pass it up.

"I said I wasn"t interested in being a candidate, but I certainly wasn"t intending to foreclose on receiving an offer from any place in the future," he said. "They continued to contact me, and this is a matter where as Jean and I started talking about our future, we came not very long ago to the conclusion that this was the best choice for us."

Bollinger said the decision to accept the offer was rather spontaneous but did not come easily.

"It has been a very difficult and very painful decision," he said. "We didn"t make the decision until very recently."

Meanwhile, Bollinger will continue to steer the University of Michigan and the many initiatives he has begun since being inaugurated as president in 1997. He met with Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs Chair Moji Navvab yesterday and resolved many of the complaints by some faculty members that he has ignored their requests.

"There are many things under way that I"m still going to focus on," Bollinger said.

Two lawsuits challenging the University"s admissions policies are scheduled to be heard Oct. 23 in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The lawsuits were filed soon after Bollinger took office, and he has spent a good deal of his presidency defending the University"s race-conscious admissions policies.

But even with someone else at the helm, Bollinger said the University will not waver in its defense of affirmative action as the lawsuits head toward a possible hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We have laid the foundation really, as a matter of law and a matter of policy. Now it"s up to two courts to decide," Bollinger said.

One matter Bollinger said he will not be involved in is the selection of a new provost.

"It is really the prerogative of a sitting president to select the provost. So it is really no longer my business to select a permanent provost," he said.

Bollinger had been the chair of the search committee, but the search is now on hold indefinitely.

Interim Provost Lisa Tedesco said she plans to continue in that position as long as necessary until a permanent replacement can be found.

"If I"m asked to serve in that capacity I will work with the regents and the interim president or the president in any way they wish," she said. "I have every intent of doing the best job I can for Michigan."

The University"s nine executive officers were all appointed during Bollinger"s term.