Paul Yu, president of the State University of New York at Brockport, will become the 25th president of San Jose State University.

Yu, 62, was appointed Tuesday by the California State University Board of Trustees to succeed Bob Caret, who left last summer to lead Towson University, in Maryland. Joseph Crowley has been serving as interim president of the 30, 000-student university during the replacement search.

Yu will take the helm at a time when San Jose State is in the midst of both an ambitious building program and deep budget cuts.

The university recently unveiled a stunning new library that is shared with city residents, and building is under way on campus apartments for more than 2,200 additional students, staff and faculty.

But the state's budget crisis is causing pain in the classroom, sparking a move on campus to slash funding to the campus' athletic program.

On Monday, San Jose State's Academic Senate voted 21-11 to recommend reducing spending on athletics from roughly 3.3 percent to 1.8 percent of the campus general fund.

The savings from this adjustment -- about $3.3 million per year, would be redirected to academics.

But the cuts would likely force the university's athletic teams to withdraw from Division 1-A and the Western Athletic Conference.

While the Academic Senate vote is advisory, campus faculty see it as a statement that academics should be the university's firm priority in hard economic times.

San Jose State is one of six of CSU's 23 campuses to support a football team, and one of only three to participate in Division 1-A competition. The proposal to scale back funding for athletics applies only to competitive team sports. Physical education classes are funded separately.

Yu was traveling Tuesday and could not be reached for comment, but departing interim President Crowley distributed a lengthy e-mail on campus arguing against withdrawing from Division 1-A competition.

Yu, who will start July 15, has been president of the 8,500-student SUNY Brockport since 1997. Before that, he served in the positions of provost, senior vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indiana.

At Central Michigan University, he was associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, and chair of the philosophy department. He was also a Fulbright lecturer in philosophy at National Taiwan University.

He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy at the University of Michigan.

Yu was chosen for the San Jose State post after the California State University's Board of Trustees and chancellor rejected all three candidates presented to them in November. The search continued, and resulted in the nomination of Yu and one other candidate this spring.

Founded in 1857, San Jose State University is the oldest public university in the western United States. It occupies 154 acres in downtown San Jose.