Daniel J. Myers has been named the permanent provost and chief academic officer of American University and will start in his new position on Jan. 15, University President Sylvia Burwell announced today.
Myers most recently served as the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Marquette University, where he was also a professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Science.
“Dan is deeply committed to the integration of scholarship, teaching, and student life as the defining goal of a university, and he has a record of success in achieving it,” Burwell said in a news release. “He is clearly committed to the elements of our strategy, which we shared as a prominent component of the search process.”
As provost, Myers will oversee all academic departments and units as well as play a “crucial role” in the University’s strategic plan, according to the news release. In the past year, Burwell has worked on developing the plan, which lays out her vision for improving the University’s academic offerings and raising AU’s profile as an institution, among other priorities.
“I am very excited to join the AU community,” Myers said in a news release. “I look forward to raising our research profile to enhance our scholarly impact and benefit the student experience. Working in Washington to leverage and build the role of AU in the city and world is exciting. I am inspired to work with President Burwell on the realization of AU’s new strategic plan.”
At Marquette, where Myers worked from 2015 to 2018, he oversaw the creation of a new LGBT resource center and a Race and Ethnic studies program. Prior to working at Marquette, Myers was the vice president and associate provost for faculty affairs at the University of Notre Dame.
He was selected by a search committee headed by School of Communication dean Jeff Rutenbeck and School of International Service dean Christine BN Chin.
“It became clear in the early stages of the search that there was tremendous interest in this position,” Rutenbeck and Chin said in a news release. “Dr. Myers stood out for his experience with enterprise-wide strategic planning and his commitment to academic rigor, high-impact scholarship, and inclusive excellence.”
Senior vice provost Mary Clark served as interim provost after Scott Bass stepped down from the position in June. Bass served as AU's provost for 10 years and faced accusations that he discriminated against professors seeking tenure on the basis of age and gender in the tenure process. One of those professors, Loubna Skalli-Hanna, won a $1.3 million lawsuit against AU for age discrimination in October.
