Professor Courtney C. Coile, the current William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of economics at Wellesley, has been appointed the next Provost and Lia Gelin Poorvu ’56 Dean of the College. In her new role, Professor Coile will be Second Officer of the College, working closely with the President, Board of Trustees and other members of senior leadership to provide overall strategic leadership and crisis management for the College, as well as serve as the Chief Academic Officer of the College leading the Office of the Provost. 

The search process for the position began last fall with the assembly of the Faculty Provost Search Advisory Committee which would work closely with President Paula Johnson. The committee consisted of nine members; six elected by the faculty and three appointed by the President. Professor Coile was chosen after an extensive search by the Committee, the President and the Board of Trustees. The final decision was subject to President Johnson and the approval of the Board of Trustees, who had ultimate authority on the appointment. 

Professor Coile has been a member of the Wellesley College faculty for 24 years, working her way up through the ranks, first being hired as an assistant professor, then getting tenure, and becoming a full professor about 10 years ago. More recently, Professor Coile has served as Chair of the Economics department and Chair of the Committee on Admission and Financial Aid. 

“During my time here, my priority has been being a classroom teacher and an advisor to students,” Coile said. 

Coile has taught foundational courses in economics, courses related to her interests in health economics, and served as a first-year and major/minor advisor. 

“Being Chair of the Committee on Admission and Financial Aid this year has given me a real window on the admission and financial aid process. We evaluated the College’s test-optional policy, so I had to think about issues like that through committee service. I’ve also had the opportunity to build relationships with people through different divisions of the College, divisions like facilities, library and technology services, or the development office,” she added. 

When looking for the next Provost, the committee detailed important qualifications needed for success in the job: intelligence and integrity, a distinguished record of academic accomplishment, a deep commitment to all aspects of the liberal arts, and an appreciation of and commitment to the value of education for women. 

Professor Casey Rothschild, the Norma Wilentz Hess Professor of Economics and a member of the Faculty Provost Search Advisory Committee, spoke about Coile.

“In her role as Chair of the economics department, Professor Coile has been a champion of department efforts to increase inclusivity of the major, including full-throated support for the department’s new 101P/102P/WISE sequence. Professor Coile is widely trusted across the College as a person of deep integrity and honest forthrightness. She is also widely known as someone with an exceptional ability to listen to — and to genuinely hear — others and to communicate clearly and effectively both when she agrees and disagrees,” Rothschild said.  

In her transition to Provost, Professor Coile will be working closely with the Office of the Provost, the President of the College and other administrators. Coile said of her future work: 

“We’re thinking about things like the tenure track hiring searches, looking at the curriculum, and currently we’re going through an evaluation of our distribution system,” she said. “We take a look at the programs we’re offering students and how to enhance and change them going forward, and there’s things every year having to do with budgets which obviously become important while funding events that we all enjoy participating in.” 

In her secondary role as Dean of the College, her job is to be the chief representative of the faculty. 

“I can be the faculty voice around the table when talking about big decisions for the college,” she said. “We always have to be thinking about balancing the interests of the current students and faculty and staff, but also the long-term interests of the institution.” 

Professor Coile also emphasized her commitment to the College’s work on inclusive excellence. 

“It’s amazing over the past seven or eight years how that has really been adopted by the faculty and by the College more broadly as an institution priority, and it’s something that is at the heart of our academic program,” she said. “I’m definitely inspired by that vision, and I know the most about how the economics department has been approaching it, so I want to get a sense of how this issue looks in other parts of the College and work with other people in thinking about how we can push this forward towards achieving our inclusive excellence goals.” 

In addition to further working towards the College’s current goals, Professor Coile spotlighted new initiatives, such as Wellesley in the World. The initiative intends to create a longer-term objective to extend opportunities for Wellesley students. 

“Something unique about Wellesley is that we have external facing centers like the Albright Institute, the Wellesley Center for Women and the launching of the Hillary Clinton Center. I think there’s potential to do work to integrate some of these initiatives, create a hub for students who want to do global work, and for faculty who want to have greater visibility and impact in their research,” Coile said.

“Success in the Provost position requires not only someone with a broad array of exceptional personal skills, but also –– since so much of our success as an institution and a community is about our collective work as a team towards our shared goals for Wellesley — buy-in from the broader community,” Rothschild concluded. “My personal view is that Professor Coile has both the truly exceptional personal skills and the deep and broad respect of members of the community that will help to catalyze community cohesion and teamwork.”