Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,

With the appointment of Dr. Stephen W. Director as our new provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, the Provost Search Committee has completed its work. We could not be more delighted with this appointment. Steve is an outstanding scholar and researcher who has the administrative and management capabilities and the kinds of personal attributes that fit well with the needs of the university. To a remarkable extent, Steve possesses the qualities set forth in the position profile that was prepared last fall.

During the search, the committee partnered with the president to reach out to and vet more than a hundred candidates, guided by the position profile. This document was drafted based on the input we received from the university community—the faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, staff, faculty senate, department chairs, deans and senior administrators with whom we met. The committee thanks all of you who participated, for you provided significant direction to the committee’s work. We also thank you for your patience during the search process, which was “closed” in order to attract top candidates whose positions might have been jeopardized had their identities become known.

We’d like to tell you a bit about Steve. He has exceptional academic credentials and an outstanding record of scholarly and professional accomplishments. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1968, then embarked on a career of research and scholarship in which he has (so far) authored six books and nearly 200 journal articles and conference proceedings; received over two dozen major grants and contracts; and supervised 30 doctoral dissertations and nearly as many master’s theses.

Steve is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society for Engineering Education.

Steve also has significant administrative experience at major research institutions. He became head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982, and continued in that position until 1991, when he was appointed dean of Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering. In 1996, he moved to the University of Michigan, where he served as dean of the College of Engineering for nine years. In 2005, he was appointed provost and senior vice president of Drexel University.

Throughout his administrative career, Steve has established a reputation as a thoughtful and decisive leader and manager, one who is eager to listen to alternative points of view, whose decisions are well reasoned, and who is capable of making tough decisions. He is described as honest, principled, and fair. He has experience in and is most comfortable with a decentralized model of academic leadership, where considerable autonomy and responsibility are vested in each college. He is well positioned to lead Northeastern toward a more decentralized culture of decision-making. He is described as an inspirational leader who mentors and empowers colleagues, and provides them with the tools they need to be successful.

Steve is committed to high standards of excellence in teaching and research, and has done much to strengthen foundational disciplines and promote interdisciplinary programs that are opening new fields of inquiry.  He is an innovator who has been a driving force behind the creation of new programs, centers, and schools. He is also a champion of diversity: at both Michigan and Drexel, he established programs and processes to build a diverse community in which differences are valued and supported.

Steve is excited at the prospect of being part of a university on the move. He is an individual who wants to build, rather than maintain the status quo. He embraces our Academic Plan and is prepared to lead us to its realization.  We celebrate his arrival.

We hope that, as you come to know Steve Director as we have, you will be as excited as we are about his decision to join the Northeastern community.

Sincerely,

Donna M. Bishop, Professor of Criminal Justice, Committee Chair

Joanne L. Miller, Professor of Psychology, Vice Chair

Committee Members:

Margot Gardener Botsford, Associate Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and University Trustee

Agnes H. Chan, Professor, Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Programs, College of Computer and Information Science

James R. Hackney, Professor of Law

Stephen Lavenberg, Student Government Association

Karin N. Lifter, Professor of Counseling and Applied Psychology

David E. Luzzi, Dean, College of Engineering

Tina Penman, Graduate Student Representative

Carey M. Rappaport, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

H. David Sherman, Professor of Accounting