(April 7, 2004) — BROCKPORT — Paul Yu, president of the State University College at Brockport, is one of two finalists for the presidency of San Jose State University.

The California State University system on Tuesday named Yu, as well as Richard S. Jarvis, a chancellor from the Oregon University system, as the two remaining candidates for the top post, winnowed from an original pool of 40.

Yu is scheduled to spend a day at San Jose State, which is in the San Francisco Bay area, on April 13 for a series of interviews with campus groups, said Colleen Bentley-Adler, director of public affairs for the California State University Chancellor’s Office. Jarvis will do likewise on April 15.

The system’s board of trustees will meet with both candidates on April 19 and is expected to announce a new president within a day or so, Bentley-Adler said.

San Jose State has an enrollment of 30,000.

Yu was not available for comment on Tuesday. In a statement, he said he wasn’t searching for a new job but was approached by a search firm and the opportunity “so dovetailed to my particular interests … that I had to take a closer look.”

”It’s certainly not surprising San Jose State would be interested in Paul Yu,” said David Henehan, spokesman for the State University of New York system. “We’ve been able to attract and compete for top talent to lead our campuses. And other institutions are certainly competing to find the best leadership they can for their best institutions.”

Yu has headed Brockport since 1997, coming here from Butler University in Indianapolis.

San Jose’s previous president, Bob Caret, left in 2003 to head Maryland’s Towson University. An interim president has been running the university since then.

This marks the second presidential search for the CSU board of trustees. In December, the board rejected all three finalists for the San Jose State presidency, restarting the search in January.

Neither Yu nor Jarvis was part of last year’s pool of applicants.