Office of Academic Affairs

Susan S. Williams
Vice Provost for Academic Policy and Faculty Resources

Susan S. Williams joined the Office of Academic Affairs as vice provost for academic policy and faculty resources on April 1, 2009. Prior to that appointment, she had served as director of graduate studies and interim vice chair in the Department of English. She had also chaired the College of Humanities’ Research Committee and served on a number of key university committees, including one on budget restructuring and several on the funding, structure, and curriculum of the Graduate School. A recipient of both the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service, she chaired the selection committee for the Distinguished Teaching award in 2008.  She was also a member of the inaugural class of the President’s and Provost’s Leadership Institute from 2005 to 2007.

Vice Provost Williams’s scholarly interests center on 19th-century American literature and culture, with a particular interest in women’s writing and in the history of authorship.  She has written or edited four books and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Critical Difference for Women Program, and the American Antiquarian Society, to which she was elected an honorary member in 2008.

Vice Provost Williams received her B.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University.  She joined Ohio State’s Department of English as an assistant professor in 1991. She was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and to professor in 2006. 

Primary responsibilities

• Academic personnel appointments and compensation approvals
• Academic personnel policy (liaison with the Office of Human Resources)
• CIC ALP
• College Pattern of Administration / Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure documents
• Dual Career Hiring Program
• Faculty conflict resolution
• Hiring approval for senior faculty
• Leadership training for new deans and department chairs
• Liaison to University Senate Rules Committee and Faculty Compensation and Benefits Committee
• Oversight of faculty awards programs (Distinguished Scholar Award, Distinguished University Professor, Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service)
• Periodic reviews of college deans
• Promotion and tenure
• The Women’s Place at The Ohio State University

Support staff
J. Briggs Cormier
Molly Davis