A provost is a senior academic administrator. At many institutions of higher education, the provost is the chief academic officer, a role that may be combined with being deputy to the chief executive officer. They may also be the chief executive officer of a university, of a branch campus of a university, or of a college within a university.
Chief academic officer
The specific duties and areas of responsibility for a provost as chief academic officer vary from one institution to another, but usually include supervision and oversight of curricular, instructional, and research affairs.
A section of Harvard's 1997 Re-accreditation Report for the New England Commission of Colleges and Schools described the provost:
The Provost at Harvard acts as an extension of the President. He is the second academic officer, after the President, having purview of the entire University. The Provost has special responsibility for fostering intellectual interactions across the University, including the five Interfaculty Initiatives (environment, ethics and the professions, schooling and children, mind/brain/behavior, and health policy). The Provost also acts to help improve the quality and efficiency of central services organized at Harvard under the aegis of the Vice Presidents.
Imperial College London, the first university in the UK to adopt a dual leadership model with a president and a provost, describes the role of the provost:
The Provost is the chief academic officer. Like the President, the Provost is a distinguished academic who upholds Imperial's very high standards for the core academic mission. He has direct responsibility for the major academic units (via the Faculty Deans) and the teaching and research mission via the Vice-Provosts (Education and Research and Innovation). The Provost also has responsibility for human – as well as intellectual – resources, with responsibility for promoting an inclusive and excellent staff and student community.
The various deans of a university's schools, colleges, or faculties typically report to the provost, or jointly to them and the institution's chief executive officer—which office may be called president, chancellor, vice-chancellor or rector. Likewise do the heads of the various interdisciplinary units and academic support functions (such as libraries, student services, the registrar, admissions, and information technology) usually report there. The provost, in turn, is responsible to the institution's chief executive officer and governing board or boards (variously called its trustees, the regents, the governors, or the corporation) for oversight of all educational affairs and activities, including research and academic personnel.
In many but not all North American institutions, the provost or equivalent is the second-ranking officer in the administrative hierarchy. Often the provost may serve as acting chief executive officer during a vacancy in that office or when the incumbent is absent from campus for prolonged periods. In these institutions, the title of provost is sometimes combined with those of senior vice president, executive vice president, executive vice chancellor, or the like, to denote that officer's high standing.
Provosts often receive staff support or delegate line responsibility for certain administrative functions to one or more subordinates variously called pro-provost, assistant provost, associate provost, vice provost, or deputy provost. The deputy provost is often the right-hand person of the provost who assumes the provost's responsibilities in the provost's absence.
Provosts are often chosen by a search committee made up of faculty members, and are almost always drawn from the 'tenured faculty' or 'professional administrators' with academic credentials, either at the institution or from other institutions.
Titles and other uses
At some North American research universities and liberal arts colleges, other titles may be used in place of or in combination with provost, such as chief academic officer or vice president for academic affairs (or, rarely, academic vice-president, academic vice rector, or vice president for education). At smaller independent liberal arts colleges, the chief academic officer may carry the title "dean of the college" or "dean of the faculty" in addition to or instead of provost. For example, at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the dean of the faculty is also the vice president for academic affairs and is the second-highest administrator, directly beneath the president.