James Vorenberg '50, associate dean of the Law School and one of four final candidates for the presidency of the University of Massachusetts, will not assume that post, the UMass board of trustees decided this week.

The trustees instead selected David C. Knapp, provost of Cornell University. Knapp will succeed Robert C. Wook, who resigned the UMass presidency in December partially because of Gov. Michael S. Dukakis's budgetary program.

Other finalists for the post included Marily Gittell, associate provost of Brooklyn College and Randolph Bromery. Chancellor of UMass-Amherst, both of whom placed ahead of Vorenberg in the trustee election.

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Vorenberg said alst night he feels "fine" about the trustee decision. "They picked a very good person and I am very pleased to be continuing what I'm doing at the Law School," he added.

As associate dean, a post Vorenberg assumed in February, he is concerned with long-term planning and curricular development. Vorenberg is also currently concluding a five-year stint as master of Dunster House.

Steven Breyer, a Harvard professor of Law and the head of the UMass presidential search committee, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

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Knapp, a former Bullock fellow at Harvard's Graduate School of Public Administration, is a political scientist who became provost at Cornell in 1974. He has also served as dean of the New York State College of Human Ecology at Cornell and directed the Institute of College and University Administrators at the American Council on Education.