Date: Friday, September 18, 2015
To: Faculty Colleagues
From: Andrew Hamilton
Re: Provost Search Committee

Dear faculty colleagues,

I look forward to being with you in person come January, but am writing now to announce the formation of a search committee to take on the task of helping me select the next provost for NYU.

First, I want to express my appreciation for the many achievements of NYU’s current provost, David McLaughlin. I have come to appreciate first hand Dave’s deep understanding of the university as a whole and his commitment to the faculty in particular. We have regular calls scheduled and will continue those so that I can learn as much from him as possible before my arrival. He has served with distinction, dedication, and a focus on NYU’s academic mission, and I appreciate his willingness to stay in the post until the end of the academic year to ensure a smooth transition as I begin my presidency. During his 13 years as Provost, NYU has experienced its largest expansion of tenured and tenure-track faculty in the arts and sciences; a major increase in federal research funds; a new focus on the teaching and learning mission, including in the areas of professional development and technology; the restoration of engineering after a 40-year absence; the successful opening of two degree-granting research university campuses abroad; the receipt of major scholarly honors by numerous faculty; and the recruitment of scholars who are at the top of their fields. We owe David a large debt of gratitude.

These are difficult times for universities, and the years ahead will be no less challenging. I see the provost as my partner in developing strategic priorities, critically assessing our academic strengths and weaknesses, and nurturing and sustaining cultures of excellence and innovation in New York and across our global network. NYU has experienced an extraordinary academic trajectory in the last decade, and our next provost will have much on which to build.

I have asked Dick Foley, Professor of Philosophy and former dean of FAS, to chair the search committee and Ellen Schall, Senior Presidential Fellow and former dean of Wagner, to staff it. The full membership of the committee is listed below. Dick, Ellen, and I have discussed the critically important role our new provost will play at NYU. I will continue to be in close touch with them and the committee throughout the process.

The committee will begin meeting this month; I look forward to sitting down with them all in October. I will ask the search committee – which will be assisted in its work by the search firm Isaacson Miller – to create opportunities for wide consultation with the faculty, both through existing channels and in open sessions. We have created an email address for this search – provost.search@nyu.edu – and would welcome input both as to what we should be looking for in our new provost and your suggestions of people we should consider, both internal and external.

I plan to ask the committee to recommend three to five outstanding candidates, unranked, for my consideration in the spring semester.

I want to thank Dick – whose broad knowledge of NYU will serve this process so well – and the entire membership of the committee for their willingness to serve.

Sincerely,

Andy Hamilton

NYU Provost Search Committee

Chair:

Richard Foley, Professor of Philosophy.

Committee:

Lily Batchelder, Professor of Law and Public Policy, School of Law.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Professor, Department of Italian Studies, Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Science; FAS Faculty Assembly.

Jess Benhabib, Paulette Goddard Professor, Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Science; FAS Faculty Assembly.

Bernadette Boden-Albala, Professor, Global Public Health, Dentistry, and Neurology/Medicine; Associate Dean of Program Development, College of Global Public Health.

Dominic Brewer, Professor of Education, Economics, and Policy, and Gale and Ira Drukier Dean, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Sylvain Cappell, Silver Professor, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences; Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Senators Council.

Fred Carl, Associate Arts Professor; Associate Chair, Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, Tisch School of the Arts; Chair, Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track/Contract Faculty Senators Council.

Una Chaudhuri, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Science and Tisch School of the Arts; Affiliated Faculty, New York University Abu Dhabi, Co-chair of the Faculty Committee on the Global Network.

Vikram Kapila, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.

Carol Mandel, Dean, Division of Libraries.

Allen Mincer, Professor, Department of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Science; Chair, Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Senators Council.

Gbenga Ogedegbe, Professor, Director of Division of Health and Behavior and Director of Center for Healthful Behavior Change, NYU Langone Medical Center; Vice Dean and Chief Medical Officer, College of Global Public Health.

Dan Smith, Associate Professor of Public Budgeting and Financial Management; Director of Finance Specialization, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; Faculty Advisory Committee, NYU Wagner.

Lynn Videka, Professor of Social Work; Dean, Silver School of Social Work; McSilver Faculty Fellow.

Robert Whitelaw, Edward C. Johnson 3rd Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance, Leonard N. Stern School of Business; Stern Faculty Council.

Administrative Management Council Delegate:

David Vintinner, Senior Director of Institutional Research, Arts & Science; Chair, Administrative Management Council.

Student Delegate:

Erik Hermans, PhD Candidate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Ellen Schall, Senior Presidential Fellow and Martin Cherkasky Professor of Health Policy and Management, is serving as Coordinator to the Search Committee.