“The provost has primary responsibility for ensuring the overall quality of all academic programs and for ensuring the high quality faculty and academic staff hired at the university,” Dean of Humanities and Education and Acting Dean of Social and Natural Sciences Ross Wastvedt said.

At Grand View, these tasks have fallen to Mary Elizabeth Stivers since 2008. Recently, it was announced that Stivers would be stepping down as provost at the end of the 2015-2016 school year. A search for her replacement is already underway. Yet before the campus community can answer the question of what it wants in a new provost, it’s important to better understand what a provost does.

“(Her daily routine consists of) interacting with other vice presidents and the president to set direction for the university, discussing policies, advising the president and coordinating with each other across other areas to ensure that we are all on the same page and trying to operate effectively and efficiently with good communication,” Wastvedt said.

Another responsibility of the provost is maintaining communication between the dean of graduate and adult programs, the director of student success, the registrar, the director of library and information resources, the special assistant to the provost and the Institutional Review Board coordinator—all members of the Provost’s Council.

“She not only meets with the Provost Council as a group but she also has weekly and monthly meetings with each individual to, again, talk about policies, strategies and issues in that person’s particular area,” Wastvedt said.

Along with her behind-the-scenes planning, she also has an obligation to represent the university.

“She has a role at public functions,” Wastvedt said. “She is the face of academic affairs [because] first and for most a college is about academics. (She also) has the opportunity to interact with provosts from other colleges.”

The university will enlist the help of a search committee to help fill the soon-to-be-vacant position.

“We will begin a national search for our next Provost,” President Kent Henning said. “We intend to use a search consultant who will work with our search committee that will review candidates, narrow the list and invite a small number of finalists to campus for extensive interviews. (We) expect the search process to be completed by spring break.”

Wastvedt said the new provost should be in place and ready to begin by July 1.