Chancellor Marye Anne Fox has announced that the university will appoint visual arts professor Susan Smith as the new John Muir College provost. Smith will officially take office starting in July.
“Professor Smith’s academic and administrative experience, together with her strong commitment to undergraduate education and UCSD’s college system, make her exceptionally well-suited to provide leadership as provost of Muir College,” Fox stated in a university letter.
Smith joined the visual arts department in 1987 and has also served as department chair. She specifically requested a transfer to become a member of the Muir faculty shortly after coming to the university.
“I look at this [appointment] as a tremendous honor, because Muir has had such a history of wonderful provosts,” Smith said. “It’s exciting and it’s also a tremendous responsibility, and if I can do a tenth as much as they did, I will be very happy.”
Smith said that she does not have a set agenda going into her position and will try to maintain the spirit of the Muir College community.
“What I would like to do is spend a lot of time my first year listening to what Muir students and staff feel are the strong points of [the college] that they would like to see continued, and also whatever issues they feel need to be addressed,” Smith said.
However, Smith said she does have certain goals in mind, including the improvement of student-faculty relations.
“I’d really like to try to look at different ways to get more faculty involved with students, but also on the other side of the coin, to make students aware that the faculty are really there for them,” she said.
Smith studied history, philosophy and psychology as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where the small and close-knit community of the university struck her. While pursuing graduate studies in art history at the University of Pennsylvania, she worked in the admissions office, where she gained administrative experience.
“It was really an experience that I think a lot of graduate students don’t have of seeing the administrative side of the university, and I found it very interesting,” Smith said. “I actually said to myself when I was in graduate school back then that I thought I would eventually like to combine administration and teaching, and it just sort of happened.”
According to Muir College Student Council Chair Neil Spears, who was involved in the selection of the new provost, the search committee considered a diverse range of candidates.
“As a student representative [on the committee], I looked for someone who was genuinely interested in students and in student life, and who had an appreciation for the unique community of the college,” Spears said. “I think Susan Smith embodies both of these [qualities], and will do a fabulous job.”
Current interim Muir provost Susan Kirkpatrick was not a candidate in the appointment process because she plans to retire at the end of this academic quarter. Kirkpatrick has been serving as interim provost for almost two years.
“I think [Smith is] a really good match for the college,” Kirkpatrick said. “She’s student-centered, and her educational philosophy fits Muir College in terms of the flexibility of requirements and promoting the intellect of students. I’m really very pleased with this appointment.”
Smith is currently finishing a book on the topic of medieval women as viewers of art. She also plans to begin research on the history of photography and the snapshot camera, and hopes to continue that research when she becomes provost.
