John D. Petersen, the University of Connecticut's provost, was chosen on Wednesday to be the next president of the University of Tennessee System after an open, four-month search designed to allay public mistrust of the hiring processes for Tennessee's two previous presidents, who both resigned amid scandals.

Mr. Petersen, 56, has been Connecticut's provost since 2000 and served as its chief operating officer until last August, when the university reorganized its top management and appointed a separate executive vice president to oversee day-to-day affairs.

A chemist who earned his doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara, Mr. Petersen came to Connecticut from Wayne State University, in Michigan, where he had been dean of the College of Science for six years. In the decade before that, he was head of the chemistry department and associate dean for research at Clemson University. He began his academic career as a chemistry professor at Kansas State University.

Tennessee's Board of Trustees picked him to be president after a public search that included interviews of six finalists that were broadcast on the Internet. "The more open the process was, the better, as far as I was concerned," Mr. Petersen said on Wednesday. "I want people to feel that what they see in the Webcast and who they talk to is what they're going to get as a leader." He will take office in July.

The state's Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, who is the board's chairman, announced last fall that the search for a new president would be unprecedented in its transparency. Mr. Bredesen said on Wednesday that the selection of Mr. Petersen would allow the university to "renew its mission" and focus on the future. "In launching the search process," he said, "I was convinced an open process would restore confidence and attract the right caliber of candidates."

The aim was to restore public faith in how public-college presidents are chosen in Tennessee, after accusations of ethical improprieties in the search process that led to the hiring of John W. Shumaker as the university system's president in 2002. Mr. Shumaker resigned last August, after only a year in office, amid an uproar over a slew of financial and ethical problems that included the use of a university airplane and credit cards for personal expenses, and the institution's awarding of at least two no-bid contracts to people the president knew.

The public furor increased when Mr. Shumaker's ex-wife, Lucy Shumaker, charged that the search process that resulted in his hiring had been rigged. She said that the Republican governor at the time, Don Sundquist, and a select group of trustees had met with Mr. Shumaker privately and also had given him interview questions in advance. That happened, she asserted, while the university officially said that it was conducting a public search.

The problems with Mr. Shumaker came on the heels of another short-lived presidency. His predecessor, J. Wade Gilley, stepped down in June 2001, amid reports that he had an improper relationship with a university employee.

In the search that resulted in the selection of Mr. Petersen, a 19-member panel of alumni, professors, students, trustees, and staff members screened résumés of 47 applicants. The committee, with the help of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, then conducted background checks on the 12 candidates who were invited for interviews.

The six finalists were interviewed again, with broadcasts on the Web, and the trustees' search committee picked three finalists: Mr. Petersen; Jack Burns, vice president for academic affairs and research at the University of Colorado System; and Kermit Hall, president of Utah State University.

Some higher-education experts criticized the openness of the process, saying that many more-qualified people had probably refrained from becoming candidates because of the highly public search.

"In the past, a search with this degree of openness has deterred a wide range of candidates from applying," said Sheldon E. Steinbach, vice president and general counsel for the American Council on Education.

But Mr. Petersen said the Tennessee search had attracted "an excellent pool," and he said the openness of the process would help him as a new president because it had helped restore public trust.