Date: April 4, 2016
To: THE NYU COMMUNITY
From: NYU President Andrew Hamilton

I am delighted to announce that after nearly seven months of extensive work by the Provost Search Committee to seek out and recommend the best candidates to be NYU’s Provost, I have selected Katherine Fleming, currently NYU’s Deputy Provost and Vice Chancellor (Europe) and a chaired professor in the Faculty of Arts and Science, as the University’s new Provost. She succeeds David McLaughlin, who has been in this role since 2002. She takes up her new post Sept 1, 2016.

No university has come further in such a short period. Katherine (Katy) Fleming has been integral to the University’s rise, and I know she will be unrelenting in our quest to continue to build one of the greatest research and teaching institutions in the world. Her knowledge of the University, outstanding academic qualifications, commitment to the highest scholarly principles, record of leadership, forthrightness, and clear perspective on both our opportunities and our challenges make Katy uniquely qualified to work with the faculty to maintain NYU’s remarkable trajectory.

Katy joined the NYU faculty in 1998. As NYU’s Deputy Provost (since 2013) and Vice Chancellor (Europe) (since 2007), Katy worked closely with the deans, directors, and schools on academic planning and also provided oversight of the Provost’s Global Research Initiatives program, which she created in 2011.

A historian, she is also the director of the Remarque Institute and is the Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization in the Faculty of Arts and Science.

Beyond NYU, Katy is an associate member of the History Department of the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and is the president of the Board of the University of Piraeus, Greece. A specialist on modern Greece, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean, she is most recently author of Greece: A Jewish History (Princeton, 2008), which won several prizes, among them the National Jewish Book Award and the Runciman Award. She holds a doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. (Chicago) and B.A. (Barnard/Columbia) in comparative religion.

This selection was the culmination of a rigorous, wide-reaching process. In all, more than 450 potential candidates were considered and the search firm that assisted us, Isaacson Miller, reported that it was one of the most impressive lists of finalists it had seen.

I would like to extend enormous gratitude to David McLaughlin, who steps down after nearly 14 years of service as NYU’s provost and returns to the faculty of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU Shanghai, and the Tandon School of Engineering. Among the many accomplishments that marked his tenure are the additions of the Colleges of Nursing and Global Public Health; the merger that established NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering; the addition of two global campuses (Abu Dhabi and Shanghai); the launch of numerous important academic initiatives (the Institute for Public Knowledge, the Marron Institute for Urban Management, the Center for Urban Science and Progress, the Center for Data Science, and Technology-Enhanced Education); the implementation of the Partners Plan, which significantly expanded tenured and tenure-track faculty in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences; and an emphasis on fostering faculty development, entrepreneurship activities, and collaborations among schools and campuses.

The Search Committee members - composed of faculty from across the University, as well as one student and one administrator - performed their task with great seriousness and a determination to find a superb provost for our University; in this, they fully succeeded. I appreciate the many hours they devoted to this assignment, which they undertook in addition to their existing responsibilities, as well as their excellent judgment. I am particularly grateful to Dick Foley, the former FAS Dean and Vice Chancellor for Strategic Planning who so ably chaired the Committee, and Ellen Schall, who provided support to the Committee throughout the search.

There are real challenges ahead for higher education and for our University. I feel fortunate to have Katy as a partner as we look to meet these and maintain our academic momentum.

Please join me in thanking the members of the Search Committee for their work, and in congratulating Katy Fleming on her appointment as NYU’s Provost.