Provost ( education ) A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States , Canada and Australia , the equivalent of a pro - vice - chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland . Additionally , the heads of certain colleges in the UK and Ireland are called provosts . In this sense , a provost is the equivalent of a master at other colleges . Duties , role , titles , and selection . The specific duties and areas of responsibility for a provost vary from one institution to another , but usually include supervision and oversight of curricular , instructional , and research affairs . The various deans of a university ' s various schools , colleges , or faculties generally report to the provost or jointly to the chief executive officer ( variously called president , chancellor , or rector ) and the provost , as do the heads of various interdisciplinary units and academic support functions , such as libraries , student services , the registrar , admissions and information technology . The provost , in turn , is responsible to the institution ' s chief executive officer and governing board or boards ( variously called the board of trustees , the board of regents , the board of governors , or the corporation ) for oversight of all educational affairs and activities , including research and academic personnel . In many but not all North American institutions , the provost or equivalent is the second - ranking officer in the administrative hierarchy . Often the provost may serve as acting chief executive officer during a vacancy in that office or when the incumbent is absent from campus for prolonged periods . In these institutions , the title of provost is sometimes combined with those of " senior vice president " , " executive vice president " , " executive vice chancellor " , or the like , to denote that officer ' s high standing . Provosts are often chosen by a search committee made up of faculty members and are almost always drawn from the ' tenure d faculty ' or ' professional administrators ' with academic credentials either at the institution or from other institutions . At some North America n research universities and liberal arts college s , other titles may be used in place of or in combination with provost , such as chief academic officer ( CAO ) or vice president for academic affairs ( or rarely , academic vice president , academic vice rector , or vice president for education ) . At smaller independent liberal arts colleges , the chief academic officer may carry the title " dean of the college " or " dean of the faculty " in addition to or instead of " provost " . For example , at Trinity College in Hartford , Connecticut , the Dean of the Faculty is also the Vice President for Academic Affairs and is the second highest administrator , directly beneath the President . Provosts often receive staff support or delegate line responsibility for certain administrative functions to one or more subordinates variously called " assistant provost " , " associate provost " , " vice provost " , or " deputy provost " . The deputy provost is often the right hand person of the provost who assumes the provost ' s responsibilities in the provost ' s absence . Other titles and uses . State university system s in the United States are the state universities operated and funded primarily by the state government . ( They may include multiple administratively independent campuses , or an integrated multi - campus state university ) . In some state university systems , " provost " may be the title held by the head of branch campus . For example , until recently the chancellors of the Newark and Camden campuses of Rutgers University in New Jersey were known as provosts . Sometimes the chief academic officer or chief medical officer of a university medical center ( also academic medical center ) holds the title of provost . In some universities , the chief administrative officer of a large academic division may hold a provostial title . Finally , in some colleges and universities , the title of provost ( and the function of deputy to the president or chancellor ) may be separate from the function of chief academic officer . " Provost " is the style of the heads of University College London , Royal College of Art ; Oriel , Queen ' s and Worcester Colleges at Oxford ; King ' s College at Cambridge ; Trinity College at Dublin and St Leonard ' s College ( University of St Andrews ) The chairman of the governors of Eton College is also called a provost . History . The first use of the title provost in American and Canadian higher education is unclear . At the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University , the title provost dates to the late 18th and early 19th centuries , respectively . At the University of Pennsylvania , the administrative head of the university was titled provost until the 1930s , when the Board of Trustees created a separate office of president and re - designated the provost as chief academic officer and subordinate to the new presidency . At Columbia University , the Board of Trustees established the office of provost in 1811 , only to abolish it five years later . The Trustees and the president of the university re - established the office of provost in 1912 . Although the precise title of the office has changed over time , the responsibility as Columbia ' s chief academic officer has remained constant . Other North American universities and colleges created provostships during and after World War II when dramatic increases in undergraduate enrollments ( due to the G . I . Bill ) and the increased complexity of higher education administration , led many chief executive officers to adopt a more corporate governing structure . By the 1960s , most of the other Ivy League institutions ( Dartmouth , Yale , Princeton , Cornell , and Brown ) had provosts ( or equivalents ) , as did other private research universities such as the University of Chicago , Stanford University , Rice University , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Tufts University , Emory University , Wake Forest University and Duke University . At Harvard University , the office of provost has had two distinct incarnations . The office ' s first incarnation was during World War II and the immediate postwar era . James Bryant Conant , the president of the university from 1933 to 1953 , asked the Harvard Corporation ( the more senior of the two governing boards ) to create the office of provost in October 1945 , at time when he ( Conant ) spent a great deal of time in Washington , D . C . as chairman of the National Defense Research Committee . Conant appointed historian Paul Herman Buck , the dean of the Faculty of Arts of Sciences ( FAS ) , to concurrently serve as provost . ( The original legislation required that the provost be concurrently dean of FAS . ) As provost and dean , Buck had oversight of FAS ( which includes Harvard College , the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences , the Extension School , the Summer School , and what is now called the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences ) and its affiliated laboratories , research centres , and museums . However , he had no authority over Harvard ' s professional schools ( at that time , the Divinity School , the Law School , the Faculty of Medicine , the School of Public Health , and the Graduate Schools of Business Administration , Design , Education , and Public Administration ) . The provost ' s office was eliminated when Conant retired from Harvard ' s presidency in 1953 . During the presidencies of Nathan Marsh Pusey ( 1953 – 1971 ) and Derek C . Bok ( 1971 – 1993 ) , the deans of Harvard ' s nine faculties reported directly to the president , with the dean of FAS being " primus inter pares " . The second incarnation began in 1993 , when then - Harvard President Neil Rudenstine asked the Corporation to recreate the provostship as a second university - wide academic officer other than the president . A section of Harvard ' s 1997 Re - accreditation Report for the New England Commission of Colleges and Schools reads : " The Provost at Harvard acts as an extension of the President . He is the second academic officer , after the President , having purview of the entire University . The Provost has special responsibility for fostering intellectual interactions across the University , including the five Interfaculty Initiatives ( environment , ethics and the professions , schooling and children , mind / brain / behavior , and health policy ) . The Provost also acts to help improve the quality and efficiency of central services organized at Harvard under the aegis of the Vice Presidents . "