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SIPA Dean John Coatsworth Appointed Interim Provost at Columbia
Columbia President Lee C. Bollinger announced on June 29 that he has appointed SIPA Dean John H. Coatsworth as interim provost of the University beginning July 1.
Dean Coatsworth will serve as interim provost for six months while the University searches for a permanent replacement. He also will continue to serve as dean of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
Dean Coatsworth credited the entire SIPA community – faculty, staff, students and alumni – for the School’s many successes during his tenure.
“I am confident that SIPA will maintain the momentum we have achieved together, without missing a beat, over the next six months,” he said in his own announcement.
In his message to the University, President Bollinger recognized Dean Coatsworth’s numerous achievements during his career, noting, “His wide experience at Columbia and elsewhere makes him ideally suited to help with the array of academic and budgetary issues lodged in the Provost’s office,” said President Bollinger.
Dean Coatsworth is one of the nation’s leading scholars on Latin American economic and international history. He joined Columbia University in 2006 and became dean of SIPA in 2008. He previously taught at the University of Chicago and served as the Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs at Harvard University. He was the founding director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard.
Former Provost Claude Steele resigned in June to become dean of Stanford University’s School of Education. Steele, a noted social psychologist, served as provost for two years.
Alex Burnett, June 29, 2011