Provost (education)
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.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).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.[29] At Columbia University, the board of trustees established the office of provost in 1811 as a political compromise; it was abolished five years later when the holder departed.[30] Other American universities and colleges created provosts as heads of academic affairs during and after World War II, when dramatic increases in undergraduate enrollments (due to the G.I.Bill) and the increased complexity of higher education administration led many chief executive officers to adopt a more corporate governing structure.By the 1960s, many private research universities had provosts installed as their chief academic officers, including Brown (1949),[31] Chicago (1963),[32] Cornell (1931),[33] Dartmouth (1955; in abeyance 1972–79),[34] Duke (1960),[35] Johns Hopkins (1924),[36] MIT (1949),[37] Princeton (1966),[38] Rice (1954),[39] Stanford (1952),[40] Tufts (1951),[41] Wake Forest (1967)[42] and Yale (1919).[48][49] As of December 2022,[update] most members of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in the UK had appointed a senior officer with academic responsibility separate from their chief executive.