University of California officials and those involved in the search for the next chief executive of UCLA have not confirmed or denied a report that Deborah Freund, provost at Syracuse University, is the sole remaining candidate to replace Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

According to a report Friday by the Los Angeles Times, Freund is in final negotiations with university officials about taking the chancellorship; she and UC President Robert Dynes are in negotiations over her compensation package. The Times cited anonymous sources who are “close to the search.”

According to UC spokesman Noel Van Nyhuis, “the search has not been completed and the chancellorship has yet to be offered to anyone.”

Search committee members echoed that the search has not yet been completed.

If selected, Freund would be the first female chief executive of UCLA.

In addition to her current position as provost, Freund is the vice chancellor for academic affairs and professor of public administration at Syracuse, a private university in New York with nearly 19,000 students.

She is a renowned health economist, especially in the areas of PharmacoEconomics, a field she is credited for founding, as well as Medicaid, according to Syracuse’s Web site.

While sources close to the search would not specify whether Freund was interviewed or whether the committee made recommendations, there are indications that the committee is familiar with her qualifications.

“Looking at all the experience that (Freund) has and all that she’s done, I think she would be a good chancellor of UCLA,” said a member of the search committee, who asked not to be identified due to the confidential nature of the search process.

The Times also reported that the UC is currently in salary and benefit-package negotiations with Freund, including a potential appointment for her husband Thomas Kniesner, chariman of the economics department at Syracuse.

But according to Van Nhyuis, such negotiations have not begun.

“The first step is to choose the chancellor, the second is to discuss those details, but the chancellor has yet to be named,” he said.

Because of the confidential nature of the search process, search committee members are expected to keep from disclosing specifics of the committee’s progress until Dynes announces his selection, which must be approved by the UC Board of Regents.

Search committee members interview candidates and give their recommendations to Dynes, but are purely advisory and have no bearing on the final decision.

UCLA Graduate Students Association President Jared Fox, who sits on the search committee, said the search began with close to 1,000 candidates.

Undergraduate Students Association Council President Jenny Wood, who also sits on the search committee, said the committee forwarded the names of “under 10” candidates to Dynes, but she refused to confirm or deny whether Freund was one of them.

Fox, Wood and Student Regent Adam Rosenthal all said the decision is not yet finalized.

The three committee members also said they were disappointed in seeing the story leaked to The Times because it indicates that someone discussed information that should not have been shared.

“Whoever said anything about the process, whether it was true or not, violated the confidences of the regents. It was totally uncalled for, and I was personally offended,” Rosenthal said.

Van Nyhuis said Dynes hopes to makes his recommendation for UCLA’s ninth chief executive to the UC Board of Regents soon, but did not specify whether Dynes’ recommendation would be announced in time to be approved at the regents meeting scheduled for May 16 to 18 at UC San Francisco.

Carnesale announced in September that he would be stepping down in late June after serving as chancellor of UCLA since 1997.

Before resuming teaching at UCLA, Carnesale plans to take a one-year sabbatical to reacquaint himself with the current study on his areas of expertise, which include nuclear weapons and foreign and defense policy.

English department chairman Thomas Wortham was quoted in The Times article saying he had friends at Indiana who knew Freund as an “excellent administrator and a pioneer in promoting interdisciplinary

scholarship,” though Wortham told The Bruin he does not personally know Freund.

According to The Times, Freund is supposed to visit the UCLA campus this week, but UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said he did not know whether this was true, and added he didn’t know why she would be visiting if she did come.

With reports from Melinda Dudley and Charles Proctor, Bruin senior staff.