University of Chicago Provost to step down after eight years

Geoffrey R. Stone, the Harry Kalven, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Provost of the University of Chicago, has decided to step down as Provost during the 2001-02 academic year in order to return to full-time research and teaching in the University’s Law School and its undergraduate College.

Stone was appointed Provost––the senior officer of the University under the President––by then-President Hugo Sonnenschein in 1993. He has served as Provost longer than any person since the position was created at the University in 1962, when it was held by Edward Levi. Before his appointment as Provost, Stone served as Dean of the Law School from 1987 to 1993. He has been a member of the faculty since 1973.

Calling the Provost’s position “the single most demanding job in the University,” University President Don Michael Randel said in a statement today to the faculty, “It is difficult to imagine the administration of the University without him. My own gratitude to him is incalculable. I was fortunate to have him as a much-admired professional colleague before becoming a part of this community, and since that time it has been my greater good fortune to have him as a daily collaborator and as a friend. But it is as a community that we must recognize our enormous debt to him––for his keen intelligence, his endless energy and his unshakable commitment to the University. Simultaneously, one is bound to understand and respect his wish to return to the teaching and scholarship that made him an important citizen of the University in the first place.”

Randel said he will “solicit views widely on who might make a suitable successor …particularly concerning members of our community, from which I expect the new Provost to be appointed.”

In his early years as Provost, Stone focused on restructuring the University’s budget processes in order to strengthen the University’s finances. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Biopsychological Sciences Building, which opened in 1998. He also led the University’s two-year Campus Master Planning process, which conceptualized and sited the Max Palevsky Residential Commons, the Bartlett Dining Commons and the new Press Building, which opened this year; the Ratner Athletics Center and the Interdivisional Research Building, which are under construction; the new Graduate School of Business integrated campus, which will break ground next year; and major improvements on the Midway Plaisance.

As Chair of the University’s Planning and Budget Committee, Stone made it a special priority to target University resources to strengthen faculty salaries and research, enhance academic computing and the library, increase stipends for graduate students, improve the quality of student life, support the University’s connections with the community, increase the diversity of the faculty and students, strengthen College admissions and College programs, and sustain the intellectual excellence of the University by supporting the creation of such new interdisciplinary programs as the Human Rights Program, the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, the Institute for Mind and Biology, the Computation Institute, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Cultural Policy Center, the Committee on Cinema and Media Studies, the Center for Gender Studies, and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.

Stone appointed University-wide committees to lay the groundwork for future initiatives in the arts, in international programs and in the area of computation. He has already appointed a new Arts Planning Council to begin work in that direction.

As Provost, Stone worked closely with Deans and Chairs to recruit and retain the most talented and committed faculty, to foster a supportive and intellectually exciting environment for research and teaching, to pay renewed attention to teaching in appointments and promotions, and to articulate clear and rigorous standards for promotion and tenure.

During his time as Provost, Stone has taught eight courses in the Law School, co-edited eight volumes of The Supreme Court Review, co-authored two new editions of Constitutional Law (the nation’s leading constitutional law casebook), completed a new casebook on The First Amendment, and co-authored Eternal Vigilance: Free Speech in the Modern Era (which will be published this fall by the University of Chicago Press).

Stone is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a member of the Board of Governors of Argonne National Laboratory; a member of the Board of Directors of the National Opinion Research Center; a member of the Board of the Chapin Hall Center for Children; a member of the Board of the Renaissance Society; and a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union.

As he returns to full-time teaching and research in the University’s Law School, he will also begin work on a new book on the subject of freedom of speech during wartime.