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Brits Claim Another Yale Provost
July/August 2008
by Mark Alden Branch ’86
The Yale provost’s office is starting to look like a
triple-A farm team for leaders of elite universities. In June, it was announced
that Yale’s current provost, chemist Andrew Hamilton, has been named vice
chancellor of the University of Oxford—the fourth consecutive Yale provost
named to the top job at a leading university. (The title of chancellor is an
honorary one in British universities; the vice chancellor is the chief
executive officer.) Hamilton follows past provosts Susan Hockfield (who became
president of MIT in 2004), Alison Richard (vice chancellor, Cambridge, 2003),
and Judith Rodin (president, University of Pennsylvania, 1994-2004). Hamilton
will take office in October 2009.
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The last nine provosts were all chosen from among Yale’s faculty.
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Although a native of Britain, Hamilton has spent his
professional life in the United States, including eleven years at Yale, four of
them as provost. “It’s not a system I have worked in before,” he says of
British higher education, “but it’s one that I see as being a very interesting
and important challenge for me.” He will be the first vice chancellor of Oxford
who had no prior affiliation with the university.
Hamilton cites the acquisition of the new West
Campus, changes to the tenure system, and steps toward greater faculty
diversity as sources of satisfaction during his tenure at Yale. He leaves in
the midst of Yale’s capital campaign, but he is stepping into a leading role in
Oxford’s recently launched $2.5 billion campaign.
President Levin wrote to the Yale faculty and staff
that he plans to have a successor in place by early fall. If he follows
precedent, Levin will not have to look far: the last nine provosts were all
chosen from among Yale’s faculty.  |
