To All Members of the Campus Community:
I am pleased to announce that our Board of Regents has appointed three executive leaders for the University of Michigan: Susan M. Collins as interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, Martino Harmon as vice president for student life, and Rebecca Cunningham as vice president for research.
The University Record will have additional details on each appointment.
Leadership transitions during the challenging times created by the COVID-19 pandemic are a great reminder that we have very strong teams in place all across our institution and at every level. Academic Affairs, Student Life, and the Office of Research have stepped up mightily to allow us to continue the pursuit of our mission and to serve our students. I thank everyone who has contributed their talents and efforts to ensuring we remain an excellent public university.
Vice President for Student Life
The appointment of Martino Harmon as vice president for student life follows a nationwide search that included extensive input from our community, especially our students.
I want to thank everyone who participated in our town halls, met with the advisory committee, submitted input via our survey, or sent emails to our dedicated address. Numerous students, faculty and staff were involved as members of the search committee or as others who met with finalists and offered their confidential advice. Student Life at the University of Michigan has unique and essential qualities. Your engagement with this process provided tremendous value and helped to identify the right candidate to lead our Division of Student Life.
Dr. Harmon is currently the senior vice president for student affairs at Iowa State University. Iowa State has more than 33,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and its Student Affairs division has 800 staff members and 36 departments, including housing, dining, the health center, counseling services, and support services for low-income, first generation and students with disabilities.
The appointment will result in his return to Ann Arbor, as he served as dean of admission, retention and student life at Washtenaw Community College earlier in his career. Dr. Harmon began his career in student life at the University of Toledo in 1996, serving in increasingly responsible roles over eleven years. He earned a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toledo.
He will begin at U-M on July 1, 2020. Interim Vice President Taylor will remain in the role until then.
I recognize that this appointment during the COVID-19 pandemic comes at a challenging time for U-M and for Iowa State. Our first priority for both campuses is ensuring that Dr. Harmon can transition in a way that protects student health and safety on both campuses. This means he will need to be fully focused on his duties and responsibilities at Iowa State, and we may not be able to schedule opportunities for large groups within our community to meet him until a later date after he starts.
Thank you for your assistance with the search, and I invite you join me in welcoming Dr. Martino Harmon, our next vice president for student life.
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Interim Provost Collins has provided outstanding leadership of Academic Affairs as acting provost. I am very grateful to benefit from her breadth of experience at the highest levels, including service as former dean of our Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and on the Council on Foreign Relations and the boards of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Initiatives such as the Ann Arbor campus’s accreditation, and our work to improve our sexual misconduct policies and procedures continue to move forward, despite the challenges and uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This appointment will keep her in the role until a new provost is named and installed. We’ll begin thinking about a search process in the months ahead.
Vice President for Research
Vice President Cunningham has provided excellent leadership in the Office of Research as its interim leader. She has ably managed our research enterprise and overseen our university’s response to several critical issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on research and scholarship.
She has advanced our impact through innovative new programming, including our Firearm Injury Prevention Research Initiative, and responding to the shifting federal research landscape. Dr. Cunningham joined our faculty as a lecturer in 1999, and her research has focused on injury prevention, substance misuse prevention and public health. In 2019, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Please join me in congratulating Interim Provost Collins and Vice Presidents Harmon and Cunningham.
Sincerely,
Mark S. Schlissel
President
