Concluding a seven-month search process, the University of Pennsylvania yesterday nominated Yale provost Judith Rodin to be Penn's new president.

The Penn Board of Trustees is expected to ratify the nomination on December 16, making Rodin, 49, the first woman to head an Ivy League institution.

"The nomination of Judith Rodin is excellent news not only for Penn but for all of higher education," said Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine. "She is a person of extraordinary skill and insight, and all of us in the university community will benefit from her leadership and good counsel."

Rodin will succeed Penn's interim president Claire Fagin, who took over when former president Sheldon Hackney was chosen by President Clinton to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"Her experience as provost at Yale will help her understand not only the problems of education, but also the problems of a huge campus like Penn," said University of Pennsylvania spokesperson Barbara Beck.

Rodin has been at Yale since 1972, when she joined the faculty as an assistant professor of psychology. She was later named Philip A. Allen professor of psychology and, in 1989, Rodin became chair of the New Haven university's psychology department.

"Judith Rodin has served Yale with great distinction as a teacher, scholar, chairman, dean and provost," said a statement released yesterday by Yale president Richard C. Levin. "There is no one better prepared to assume the leadership of a great university."

Rodin graduated from Penn with a degree in psychology in 1966. In 1970, she earned a Ph.D from Columbia University in psychology. Rodin then served as an assistant professor at New York University for two years.

Rodin has authored or co-authored almost 100 articles in scientific journals, nearly 100 book chapters and 10 books.

"She is an excellent communicator," said Beck. "These days being president of a large university calls for both academic skill and the ability to communicate ideas both inside and outside the campus."

The search committee which selected Rodin as Penn president included graduate and undergraduate students there.

"She's an intellectual and capable leader," said Jun S. Bang, a Penn senior who served on the search committee. "She's tough-minded and at the same time warm-hearted. She's very interested in listening to student concerns."

Rodin, who could not be reached for commentyesterday, has previously described herself as"compulsively efficient."

She also is nationally known for her experiencein bringing opposing parties to the bargainingtable. Rodin appears to have learned her mediatingskills at Yale, where she was dean of the graduateschool when graduate students formed a union andwent on strike.

"She is very personable," Beck said. "She isthe definition of the dynamic woman."

"Yale will miss her, but the University ofPennsylvania will prosper from her energeticguidance," Levin's statement said.

Andrew L. Wright and the Associated Presscontributed to the reporting of this story.