Elizabeth Garrett

Who is Elizabeth Garrett?

Elizabeth Garrett is Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Frances R. and John J. Duggan Professor of Law, Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Garrett also serves on the boards of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and other local and national organizations.

Elizabeth Garrett was appointed provost and senior vice president for academic affairs on October 28, 2010. As the university’s second-ranking officer, she oversees the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences as well as the Keck School of Medicine of USC and 17 other professional schools, in addition to the divisions of student affairs, libraries, information technology services, research, student religious life and enrollment services. She also sits on the governing board of the USC hospitals.

As Provost, Garrett has directed substantial new efforts to hire transformative faculty members, including initiatives to recruit faculty in neuroscience, the humanities, and the social sciences, with the goal of catalyzing targeted fields of scholarship and invigorating USC’s research environment. She has also accelerated the recruitment of Provost Professors and created recruitment of the Provost’s Post-Doctoral Scholars Program in the Humanities. From 2006 to 2011 she led USC’s successful reaccreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Garrett has also been instrumental in the integration of the new Keck Hospitals of USC and the faculty practice plans into the university, which created an academic medical center on the Health Sciences Campus. Garrett is the Frances R. and John J. Duggan Professor in the USC Gould School of Law. In addition to this primary faculty appointment, she has joint appointments in USC Dornsife College, the Price School of Public Policy, and the Marshall School of Business, as well as a courtesy appointment in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.