Appointment of Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

April 28, 2005

Dear Colleagues:

It is my great pleasure to inform you that Edward M. Gramlich, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board and an esteemed University of Michigan faculty member, has agreed to serve the University as Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Gramlich's appointment will begin September 1, 2005, pending approval by the Board of Regents. Dr. Gramlich will succeed Provost Paul Courant, who will complete his tenure at the end of August.

Dr. Gramlich is one of the nation’s premier economists and scholars of public policy, and his career is marked by wide-ranging interests, scholarly accomplishments, and public service. He has served as a member of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors since November 1997. At the Federal Reserve, he served as chair of the board’s Committee on Consumer and Community Affairs. During his tenure the committee proposed, and the board adopted, important changes in the Home Owner Equity Protection Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. It also proposed a revision to the Community Reinvestment Act. In addition, Dr. Gramlich served as chair of the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, set up after Sept. 11, 2001, to make loan guarantees to applying airlines.

Earlier this year, he announced his intention to step down from the Board and return to the University as the Richard A. Musgrave Collegiate Professor in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He will also hold a part-time appointment as the Richard B. Fisher Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization. I am pleased that he will now also return as interim provost.

He has been a member of the University of Michigan faculty since 1976. During his time at Michigan prior to appointment to the Federal Reserve Board, he served in a number of leadership positions, including chair of the Economics Department (1983–86 and 1989–90) and director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies (1979–83 and 1991–95). He oversaw the evolution of the Institute into the School of Public Policy, which he served as the first dean, from 1995 to 1997.

He received his B.A. from Williams College in 1961, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Yale University in 1962 and 1965, respectively. His scholarly work has reached across many areas of public policy and economics scholarship, including benefit-cost analysis, budget policy, income redistribution, fiscal federalism, social security and the economics of professional sports. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and several books, including the popular textbook, A Guide to Benefit-Cost Analysis.

Dr. Gramlich has been deeply engaged in government and public service over the course of his career. From 1994 to 1996, he chaired the Quadrennial Advisory Council on Social Security, which examined the actuarial finances of the Social Security system and suggested changes in policy. He was deputy director and subsequently acting director of the Congressional Budget Office in 1986 and 1987. He directed the Policy Research Division of the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1971 to 1973. And, from 1965 to 1970, he held a staff position in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Board. He has served on numerous advisory panels, among them the Panel of Economic Advisors of the Congressional Budget Office, the National Science Foundation Economics Panel, and the White House Summit Conference. In 1992 he was the staff director for the Economic Study Commission on major league baseball. Locally, he chaired the Ann Arbor Blue Ribbon Panel on City Finances in 1991–92.

Ned Gramlich will bring to the position of interim provost a wealth of experience in academic and public policy leadership, and he will be an outstanding chief academic and budget officer for the University, until a permanent provost is appointed. As you know, a search committee chaired by James S. Jackson, director of the Institute for Social Research and the Daniel Katz Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, is in the process of conducting a rigorous search for candidates for the position. Nominations may be sent to the committee at provost.search.2005@umich.edu.

I look forward to working with Ned in the months ahead and in the transition to a new provost. I hope that you will join me in welcoming him back to the University.

Sincerely,

Mary Sue Coleman
President