Provost & Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

About Northeastern:

Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global research university and a world leader in experiential learning. The same commitment to connecting with the world drives our use-inspired research enterprise. The university offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in nine colleges and schools. Our campuses in Charlotte, N.C., San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver are regional platforms for undergraduate and graduate learning and collaborative research. Northeastern pursues advanced research in security and materials at the Innovation Campus in Burlington, Massachusetts, and in coastal sustainability at the Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts.

About the Opportunity:

Northeastern University, a global, R1 research institution and the world leader in experiential learning, seeks a provost to help shape and lead its distinguished and rapidly growing academic enterprise. This individual will be an accomplished scholar with the vision and management style to lead a fast-paced research university with a unique education model and an ambitious academic plan.

At the center of that strategic plan is the creation of a global university system—one that currently includes, in addition to its main campus in Boston, locations in the Massachusetts communities of Burlington and Nahant; Charlotte, North Carolina; the San Francisco Bay Area; Seattle; London; Toronto; and Vancouver. Together, these sites form a growing network that expands opportunities for flexible, student-centered lifelong learning, as well as new collaborative research opportunities.

Northeastern’s distinctiveness and success are deeply rooted in its renowned century-long model of experiential learning, where students combine classroom learning and professional experience. The university also offers a humanics curriculum, which integrates data, technology, and human literacies. Together these prepare Northeastern gradates to excel in a global economy driven by rapid technological advances.

That experiential ethos also informs Northeastern’s nine university-wide, interdisciplinary research institutes—in coastal sustainability, the chemical imaging of living systems, cybersecurity and privacy, global resilience, homeland security, experiential robotics, network science, the wireless Internet of Things, and, as of fall 2019, experiential artificial intelligence. Faculty and collaborators from industry, government, and academia pool their ideas and expertise to drive advances across these established and emerging fields, supported by an ecosystem of programs and funding that promote entrepreneurship. Each location in the university’s global network also serves as an opportunity for research that engages industry, government, and academia in addressing societal problems, particularly in health, sustainability, and security.

Led since 2006 by President Joseph E. Aoun, Northeastern has seen a steep rise in competitiveness for student talent, dramatic growth in its faculty, and rapid expansion and innovation in its education and research programs. For fall 2019, the mean two-part SAT score for freshmen was 1457 and applications exceeded 62,000 for an undergraduate class of 2,800. Doctoral research programs have increased since 2008 by 80 percent, and 701 new tenure/tenure-track faculty have been hired since 2006. And in 2019, external support for research rose to $178.8 million, up 267 percent since 2006. The university expects to reach $250 million in research funding by 2025.

Responsibilities:

As the university’s chief academic officer, the provost has overall responsibility for all educational and research activities of the colleges, schools and academic units.

The provost guides the university’s strategic academic planning, with a special responsibility for integrating academic planning across the colleges and fostering cross-college interdisciplinary initiatives. Working with the CFO, the provost has the university’s lead budget responsibility.

The provost takes the leading role in designing broad strategies for recruiting and developing the faculty and creates opportunities for faculty success. The provost leads the college deans in a structure that accords the colleges and schools responsibility for guiding their programs and allocating resources, and cultivates and inspires academic leadership at all levels of the university.

Qualifications:

• An earned doctorate and a record of distinguished scholarly and professional accomplishment appropriate for appointment as a tenured full professor at Northeastern University.
• A commitment to a liberal arts education that includes core technological, data, and human literacies.
• Significant administrative experience, preferably at a major research institution, with proven ability to execute ambitious, fiscally responsible, entrepreneurial initiatives.
• Extensive knowledge of planning and budgeting processes.
• A commitment to success of bold initiatives set forward in the academic plan, including the expansion of the global university system. An entrepreneurial spirit to realize the ambitions of the university.
• Demonstrated success in cultivating research and scholarship. Ability to identify and support areas of research opportunity that span individual investigators and existing disciplines. A record of developing and supporting excellent and innovative academic programs at the undergraduate, master’s, professional, and doctoral levels, both within and across disciplines.
• Personal and professional integrity. Capacity to maintain poise in complex and fraught situations, to hear opposing views clearly, and to persevere when principles or strategic considerations are at stake. Ability to work with diversity of thoughts and perspectives.
• A strong commitment to diversity in all its forms and a record of demonstrated success in recruiting, advancing, retaining, and working collaboratively with a diverse faculty and academic leadership team.
• An open management style that empowers and develops energetic, entrepreneurial academic leadership at every level of the university. The capacity to work closely as a member of the Senior Leadership Team.
• Capacity to oversee the continuing development of the infrastructure and information technologies needed to support the activities of a major research university.
• The ability to engage and inspire the academic community at the university as well as on a national and global scale.

Salary Grade:

99

Additional Information:

Northeastern University has retained the services of Isaacson, Miller to assist with this search. Review of applications, nominations, and expressions of interest will begin immediately and continue on a confidential basis until an appointment is made. Applicants should send a cover letter and resume or curriculum vitae. The electronic submission of materials is preferred. Nominations, applications, and inquiries should be sent electronically in confidence to:

John Isaacson, Chair

Elizabeth Dorr, Senior Associate

Alycia Johnson, Senior Associate

Isaacson Miller, Inc.

263 Summer Street, 7th Floor

Boston, MA 02210

https://www.imsearch.com/search-detail/S7-129

Northeastern University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Educational Institution and Employer, Title IX University. Persons of color and women are encouraged to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by the law. Northeastern University is an E-Verify Employer.