David Greene named Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Chicago

David A. Greene

University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer has announced the appointment of David A. Greene to the newly created position of Vice President for Strategic Initiatives. Greene is currently Vice President for campus life and student services at Brown University, and his appointment at Chicago will be effective on Sept.1.
     
“During the coming years, I anticipate a number of strategically defined initiatives that will of  necessity involve multiple academic and administrative units, and reflect an ambitious agenda for the University,” Zimmer wrote in a statement to the University deans, officers, and directors. Zimmer, who became President of the University of Chicago on July 1 and most recently served as Provost at Brown, added that in the four years he worked there with Greene, he “consistently saw the experience, judgment, skills and intelligence that will make him perfectly suited” to oversee these initiatives and ensure that the University’s planning is well coordinated and its priorities clearly defined and communicated.

At Brown, Greene has oversight of thirteen departments and is the senior officer responsible for policies and planning that optimize the educational environment for the University’s undergraduate, graduate and medical students.  He has led planning studies that are resulting in major new and renovated campus facilities, a broad range of new student services, and a number of new programs that enhance the academic dimensions of residential and campus life. 

He began his career at Brown as President Ruth J. Simmons’s chief administrative deputy. During that time he helped develop the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the University’s long-term plan.   He played a similar role for Ruth Simmons while she was president of Smith College.  While at Smith, he helped oversee planning efforts that resulted in an ambitious program of facilities and programmatic expansion.

Greene received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1985 from Hamilton College, and several degrees from Harvard: a master’s in human development and psychology in 1991 and a master’s and a doctorate in administration, planning and social policy, in 1994 and 2002.

His research interests include the influence of social and political movements on U.S. higher education.  His book The Women’s Movement and the Politics of Change at a Women’s College, was published in 2004 by RoutledgeFalmer Press.