Desired Qualities

Desired Qualities and Capacities for the Boston University Provost

• Boston University’s academic range and aspirations require that the University Provost be a distinguished researcher and scholar whose achievements within a discipline or emerging interdisciplinary area are widely recognized and merit appointment at the most senior level in an academic department or program.
• The Provost will need to demonstrate a history of innovative and effective leadership in a consultative academic environment.
• The Provost will need to be knowledgeable about internal and external funding streams necessary to build and sustain excellence in research and educational programs and be experienced in envisioning, establishing, and managing these enterprises.
• Boston University has a strong commitment to the liberal arts and sciences and to ensuring that all bachelor’s-level graduates possess a strong liberal arts foundation. The Provost should share this commitment.
• The Provost, who is responsible for academic budgets and a key participant in shaping the overall budgeting of the University, should understand fiscal planning and accountability and possess a well-developed sense of how to allocate resources to fulfill the priorities of the University’s strategic plan.
• The Provost will need to appreciate the principles of shared governance and master the procedural details that undergird shared governance, while recognizing that these are not a substitute for a spirit of generous understanding.
• The Provost has primary responsibility for building Boston University’s faculty and should have significant experience in recruiting, retaining, and nurturing faculty. Along with his/her own credentials for excellence in research, scholarship, and education, the successful candidate should have a well-developed ability to gauge academic quality and an appreciation for the vital importance of hiring and promotion decisions in creating and sustaining excellence in the University.
• The Provost bears the responsibility for making many resource allocation decisions, some of them zero sum. This reality calls for personal traits of resilience, thoughtfulness in speech, responsiveness, and fair-mindedness. A prudent respect for Murphy’s Law should live alongside a predisposition to optimism.