Date: April 5, 2022
TO: The NYU Community
FROM: Andrew Hamilton, President

I write with bittersweet news: our estimable provost, my good colleague and friend, Katherine Fleming, has informed me that she has been appointed President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, effective August 1, 2022.  I could not be happier for her, of course, and I commend the Getty Trust for recognizing her talents.  But, for NYU, the loss of Katy and her great gifts will be significant and keenly felt.

Astute, strategic, forthright, and hilarious, Katy – an esteemed scholar of Mediterranean history – has helped keep the faculty and the University’s scholarly mission at the center of every leadership conversation.  Under Katy, the Office of the Provost established a faculty-focused Office of Work Life; enlarged and strengthened the faculty onboarding and orientation experience; developed a transparent, University-wide retirement program for tenured faculty; built a brand new junior faculty mentorship program; and significantly expanded supports for faculty parents and programs for retirees.  She substantially increased seed funding for faculty research, expanded offerings for post-docs, founded and funded our cluster hire initiative, and established the Global Research Initiative, which has brought so many graduate students and faculty to our global sites and transformed them into hubs of research in addition to learning. She has helped shape the future of the University through her role in the recruitment of many deans since 2016. Perhaps most significantly, she has served an indispensable and unflagging role in the University’s response to its greatest challenge in decades: the COVID-19 pandemic.  In all, a remarkable record of achievement on behalf of our University.

I will write to you again soon to update you on interim leadership for the Provost's Office.  

In the meantime, I ask you to join me in congratulating Katy on her new assignment, wishing her all the best, and thanking her for her outstanding and dedicated service as NYU’s Provost.