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Please join us in welcoming our new Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Suzanne Austin.
Austin joined the College of Charleston’s leadership team on July 1, 2020. In this role, Dr. Austin serves as the chief academic officer of the College of Charleston and a key member of the President’s senior staff. Austin oversees academic programs, faculty affairs and many academic support functions, and works to ensure that the College of Charleston fulfills its institutional mission and goals.
Having served for nine years as the senior vice provost and senior international officer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she has accomplished much in her tenure, such as leading an improvement of retention and graduation initiatives, establishing UAB’s first-ever Undergraduate Success Center, redesigned and expanded the structure of the UAB Honors College, created the Office of Student Engagement to focus on at-risk students, expanded the Office of National and International Fellowships, created UAB’s first LGBTQ staff position in Student Life, led the redesign of the academic calendar, created the Office of Service Learning and developed and launched the Office of Global Engagement, to name but a few.
Before that, she was an associate provost for academic affairs at the University of Delaware. During her time at UD, she held many titles: dean, faculty director of research, faculty fellow, department chair and professor. A noted historian, she is the author of many articles and books, including a book titled A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective (2003), a work that is probably more relevant today than we would like.
Growing up in Madison, Connecticut, Austin, from a young age, had an interest in learning about new places and people, a curiosity which ultimately drove her to study English and journalism as an undergraduate student at North Carolina State University before pursuing a graduate degree in history from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As she followed her career into academia, Austin became fascinated by the rich history and culture of Latin America – which led her on many international adventures.
Read more: Suzanne Austin named CofC Provost on The College Today.