Ira Katznelson Appointed Interim Provost

August 16, 2019
headshot of Ira Katznelson, a man with glasses and white hair.

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

I am pleased to announce that I have appointed Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, as Interim Provost.

Ira, a graduate of Columbia College, is a scholar of the highest caliber. His analytical histories of the United States in comparative perspective and his writing on the history of ideas have been awarded various recognitions, including the Bancroft Prize in American History and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, and he has served as President of the American Political Science Association. Recently elected a Fellow of the British Academy, he also is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society. Ira is an experienced administrator, having served as a departmental chair at the University of Chicago, Dean of the Graduate Faculty at The New School for Social Research, and, at Columbia, in a prior interim role, as Acting Vice President for Arts and Sciences. More recently, he joined Columbia World Projects as Deputy Director to ensure that CWP is deeply connected to scholarship at the University and on a larger scale.  

We are deeply fortunate that Ira has spent three decades enriching Columbia in innumerable ways. As I continue to make plans to identify the permanent Provost, I am delighted that he has agreed to this interim appointment.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger