The Board of Regents has extended its “deep appreciation” and a rare Regents’ Citation of Honor to Susan M. Collins for her dedication and service to the university as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
“Provost Collins helped prepare students to become influential leaders and researchers ready to tackle real-world problems through steadfast service and thoughtful policies,” said Regent Ron Weiser, who read the board’s resolution. “A collaborator and leader, she lived her own adage, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’”
Prior to being named provost in January 2020, Collins spent a decade as the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The nomination for Collins to receive the Regents’ Citation of Honor was approved by the university’s Honorary Degree Committee and will be granted at Spring Commencement.
Regent Katherine E. White said the Regents’ Citation of Honor recognizes Collins for her “steadfast leadership and dedication to the university during a period of unprecedented challenges.”
The provost is the chief academic officer and chief budgetary officer of the Ann Arbor campus, overseeing the activities of its 19 schools and colleges as well as the many interdisciplinary institutes and centers.
Upon her appointment, Collins began the process of restoring stability and confidence in that office and on campus, amid a global pandemic and all the uncertainties that came with it. As a scholar, teacher and leader, she recognized the value of diversity and inclusion, working tirelessly to make the university a place in which people of all backgrounds thrive.
Collins was recently named president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In that role she will participate in national monetary policymaking on the Federal Open Market Committee. Her last day at U-M will be May 15.
Collins is the Edward M. Gramlich Collegiate Professor of Public Policy in the Ford School and a professor of economics in LSA. She served as Ford School dean from 2007-17. Before coming to U-M, she was on the economics faculty at Georgetown and Harvard universities and was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University in 1980, and her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984.
