David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98, professor of anthropology and chair of the department, has been tapped as the University's next provost, President Ruth Simmons announced Monday, May 8 in a campus-wide e-mail.
Kertzer told The Herald he was asked by Simmons to serve a five-year term, which is the standard length for faculty elevated to administrative positions. He expects to return to teaching and research after his time as provost, he said.
Also Monday, Dean of Engineering Clyde Briant was named vice president for research.
Both Kertzer and Briant take their new posts July 1.
Kertzer, whose research interests include Italian politics, society and history, political symbolism and anthropological demography, succeeds Robert Zimmer, who is leaving the University July 1 to become president of the University of Chicago.
"We have great momentum behind us. If you look at how much has been accomplished in the last few years, it is really striking," Kertzer said. "We've begun some exciting new programs and made many new faculty positions at both junior and senior levels that have contributed to the vibrancy of both the faculty and curriculum."
"The role of the new provost is to keep the momentum going and keep us on track," he said.
Kertzer said Brown has "a certain kind of demographic balance that is unusual among research universities" because the undergraduate College has a such an important role in the institution, compared to many other research universities that have a multitude of graduate and professional schools that compete with the undergraduate college for attention and resources.
For Brown to achieve its full potential, Kertzer said, the University must have both a strong undergraduate program and exciting research initiatives.
After the University of Chicago selected Zimmer as its new president in March, Simmons said she intended to select a new provost from the University's faculty, primarily to expedite the search process and ensure that a successor would be in place before Zimmer's departure.
In Kertzer, Simmons found a professor with longstanding ties to the University. Kertzer met his wife while they were undergraduates here - she is a 1970 alumnus of Pembroke College - and both of their children attended Brown.
After receiving a Ph.D. from Brandeis University, Kertzer was on the faculty of Bowdoin College for 19 years before arriving at Brown in 1992.
Kertzer holds appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Italian Studies, and he previously worked in the history department. He said he is currently trying to become more acquainted with parts of the University he is less familiar with, such as the Division of Biology and Medicine.
After 33 years of teaching and research, Kertzer said accepting the provost job was "a difficult decision" and will be "a major transition." But "being provost is such a challenging and exciting opportunity that it is not easy to refuse," Kertzer said.
Briant, meanwhile, replaces Andries van Dam, the University's first vice president for research, who is stepping down to return to full-time teaching and research duties as a professor of computer science.
"Professor van Dam has done a great job getting the office started. My job is to take it to the next step. ... Research at Brown is great already, and we want to do more," Briant told The Herald.
Briant said he intends to continue building research relationships with local business partners and joint ventures with other institutions, such as the current partnership with the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole and the planned alliance with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
This summer, Dean of the College Paul Armstrong will also be stepping down from his administrative post to return to teaching and research as a professor of English. Simmons said at a May 2 faculty meeting that the search committee charged with recommending Armstrong's replacement is currently scheduling interviews with a pool of candidates. Like the searches for the new provost and vice president for research, that search is expected to result in the promotion of a current Brown professor, though outside candidates are also being considered.
Simmons is currently traveling in South Korea, where she spoke Tuesday at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. The president made her administrative appointments prior to leaving campus, and the public communications were made while she was away, Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
