Michael V. Drake

In November 2019, the university announced that Drake would be retiring in 2020 and that a nationwide search for his replacement will take place.

Drake is married to Brenda Drake. Brenda Drake is an attorney and has served as a director or trustee of organizations focused on education, international health, finance, civil rights and the arts, including the National Urban League, City Arts & Lectures in San Francisco, San Francisco University High School and Golden Gate Bank. She is a director emerita and former board chair of Engender Health Inc., an international women’s health organization, and is currently on the board of the Wexner Centre Foundation and Legal Aid Society of Columbus. President Drake and his wife, Brenda, have two adult sons and four grandchildren.

In 2017, Dr. Drake led the establishment of the Ohio State Tuition Guarantee — freezing tuition, mandatory fees, housing and dining for four years for incoming, in-state freshmen. He also increased the value of Ohio State Land Grant Opportunity Scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance while doubling the size of the program in 2018.

Drakes first job was working at Tower Records. He is quoted as having a “passion for music, which is still a hobby today”. In 2015, Dr. Drake was appointed to the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. He has had a lifelong interest in music (notably rock and jazz), plays guitar and teaches an undergraduate course on the music of the civil rights movement.

Dr. Michael V. Drake assumed his current post in June of 2014. From July 2005 to June 2014, Dr. Drake served as chancellor of the University of California, Irvine. He also served as a Professor of Ophthalmology (School of Medicine) and Education (School of Education). Prior to serving as UC Irvine chancellor, Drake served for five years as vice president for health affairs for the University of California system. He also spent more than two decades on the faculty of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine, ultimately becoming the Steven P. Shearing Professor of Ophthalmology and senior associate dean.

On January 30, 2014, the Ohio State University Board of Trustees named Dr. Drake as the 15th president of The Ohio State University. He began his tenure at the university on June 30, 2014.. Since his appointment the university has committed $100 million in additional need-based aid which has assisted around 32000 students. At the time of his appointment, he was part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the board of directors of NCAA Division I. In March 2015, Drake was appointed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board.

Drake fired Ohio State marching band director Jon Waters on July 24, 2014, after a university investigation found that the band's "sexualized culture" was "inconsistent with the University's values and Title IX requirements". The university stated that there were "serious cultural issues and an environment conducive to sexual harassment within the Marching Band", and that the band director "was aware or reasonably should have known about" it. Waters has sued for reinstatement, accusing the university, Drake, and a provost of discriminating against him by disciplining him differently than a female employee and denying him due process. To date, Drake has stood by his decision to terminate Waters as marching band director. As of January 2015, the university had spent nearly $1 million in taxpayer-provided funding in defense of the decision and subsequent actions. Invoices requested under Ohio's public records laws were heavily redacted, leading to more questions about what work the university had paid certain firms to perform.

Drake's first major firing scandal was to fire the Dean of the UCI law school, Erwin Chemerinsky. After signing a contract on September 4, 2007, the hire was rescinded by UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake, because he felt the law professor's commentaries were "polarizing"; Drake claimed the decision was his own and not the subject of any outside influence.

On September 17, Chemerinsky issued a joint press release with Drake indicating that Chemerinsky would head the UCI law school. On September 20, 2007, Chemerinsky's hire was formally approved by the Regents of the University of California. In 2014, Chemerinsky said that he and Drake had since reconciled.

In 2005, Drake was appointed as the fifth chancellor of the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He officially began his term on July 1, 2005. His annual $350,000 salary remained unchanged from his previous position at the Office of the President, up from $70,000 paid to the previous UCI chancellor. As of 2010 he earned $374,969.32.

Michael V. Drake, M.D., was born in New York City and raised in Englewood, New Jersey and Sacramento, California. He is the son of a doctor and a social worker. His mother graduated from East High School in Youngstown Ohio, before attending college in Baltimore. The family lived in Baltimore, Nashville, New York and New Jersey, before settling in Northern California. During college summers in the early 1970s, he worked at the original Tower Records.

Michael Vincent Drake (born July 9, 1951) is an American university administrator and physician. In 2014, he became the 15th president of Ohio State University. From 2005 to 2014, he was the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine and prior to that served as vice chancellor for health affairs for the University of California system. He is the first African American President of the Ohio State University.