FORMER BOREN AIDE introduced as new OU-Tulsa president

Friday, July 13th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(TULSA) - A man who served as an aide to former Sen. David Boren was introduced Thursday as the new president of the University of Oklahoma at Tulsa during a farewell party for the outgoing head of the school.

An official announcement of Kenneth Levit's appointment is set for Friday. The OU Board of Regents will consider his confirmation later this month.

Levit, 35, served as Boren's press secretary from 1987-90. Boren is now president of the University of Oklahoma.

Levit would replace Kenneth Lackey, 58, who announced in June that he would take an executive vice president position at Nordam Inc. after about two years in the president's office.

The Tulsa-based aerospace company is principally owned by Robin Siegfried, chairman of the OU regents, and his brother Ray Siegfried.

Levit is expected to take the helm at OU-Tulsa Sept. 1 if approved.

``I am excited about this opportunity,'' he said. ``However, more than anything else I am exceedingly humbled by it.''

Currently, Levit serves as senior counsel and director of business development at Williams Communications Inc. He graduated from Holland Hall High School in Tulsa and earned his law degree at Yale Law School in 1994.

Levit served as special counsel to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet.

Part of Levit's duties as OU-Tulsa's second president will involve strengthening the school's presence here, Lackey said. He will be called upon to build on OU's health sciences, telecommunications and social work programs here.

He'll also deal with enlarging OU's pharmacy program to help lessen the acute shortage of pharmacists in northeastern Oklahoma.

In Tulsa, Levit also has worked in the law firm of Crowe and Dunlevy, specializing in commercial litigation. At Yale Law School, he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Levit earned his bachelor's degree in 1987 at Brown University, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with degrees in public policy and Russian studies.

He and his wife, Janet, have a son, Nathan.