Provost Gilbert R. Whitaker Jr. will recommend to the Regents at their September meeting that Susan S.
Lipschutz be named associate provost.
If approved, Lipschutz will assume her new position Nov. 1. She now is assistant vice provost for academic affairs and senior associate dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies. She will continue to serve as adjunct associate professor of philosophy.
In making the recommendation, Whitaker said: “Dr. Lipschutz will bring to the Office of the Provost a rich background in academic administration. She is known and respected throughout the University community, as evidenced by the unanimous support she received from the deans and others during the selection process.
“Dr. Lipschutz will fill the role formerly held by Associate Vice President Mary Ann P. Swain. The title is being changed to associate provost to reflect more accurately the responsibilities of the position.” Swain left the U-M to become provost and vice president for academic affairs at the State University of New York, Binghamton.
Lipschutz said she is “honored by the provost’s invitation to join the Office of Academic Affairs this fall. Since the provost is responsible for both budget and academic affairs, I expect to be active on the academic affairs side of the house, with special responsibility for academic program review, faculty personnel matters, undergraduate education and the recruitment of senior women faculty.”
She added that her “duties also involve a set of units that have always been a part of academic affairs.”
Lipschutz has served as a national representative for graduate education on the Graduate and Professional Financial Aid Council for the Educational Testing Service. She has twice been a reader for the Jacob K. Javits Competition for the Department of Education and a member of its national review panel. She recently was elected to the board of the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities.
Lipschutz, who received her Ph.D. from the U-M in 1969, began her academic career at the University of Denver where she taught in the philosophy department and in interdisciplinary humanities programs. In 1974–80 she taught at Albion College, serving as assistant dean of the faculty. She received an American Council on Education Fellowship in Academic Administration for 1980–81.
She returned to the U-M as assistant to then-President Harold T. Shapiro. In 1986 she became associate dean of the Graduate School and was promoted to senior associate dean in 1989. She was named to her current position in January 1993.
