A faculty-trustee search committee at the University of Chicago nominated John Todd Wilson, acting president of the university, for the presidency on Monday.

The Board of Trustees of the university will vote on the nomination on December 9. It is highly probable that they will accept the recommendation of the committee, D.J.R. Bruckner, vice president for public affairs, said yesterday.

The search committee wanted to recommend Wilson to the Board of Trustees in February, Bruckner said, but at that time Wilson declined the nomination, citing personal reasons for his refusal.

Wilson yesterday said he would comment on the reason for his original refusal and on his current acceptance of the nomination only after the December 9 vote.

James Q. Wilson, Henry Lee Shattuck professor of government at Harvard, reportedly considered for the nomination, said he was "delighted" with the committee's choice of John Wilson.

"I never considered myself a candidate," James Wilson said. Wilson said the search committee had never officially contacted him.

John Wilson, a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford, was provost at Chicago before becoming acting president in February, after Edward H. Levi left the post to become Attorney General.