The Office of the Provost is a multi-faceted unit with broad and diverse responsibilities ranging from the development of policy and academic program review, to data collection, implementation of technology and more.

Importantly, at its foundation, is a clearly defined focus on enhancing the academic profile and reputation of the State University.

Our Mission

The mission of the Office of the Provost is to raise the State University’s academic profile by providing the leadership essential to the attainment of increasingly higher levels of academic distinction and student success.

The Office seeks, through close collaboration with constituent campuses, to add value to each institution’s academic enterprise by:

(1)	promoting scholarship, research and creative activity;
(2)	supporting the highest quality teaching;
(3)	ensuring student access to educational opportunities consistent with campus and sector missions and aspirations.

The Office will accomplish this mission by aligning SUNY institutions with the national higher educational agenda and by fostering a culture of high academic standards, and equitable access throughout the State University of New York.

About the Provost

Risa Palm is the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the State University of New York. Palm is a geography professor, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and has held tenured positions at the rank of professor in departments of geography at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Oregon, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Louisiana State University. She also taught as an instructor at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota (1969-72), as an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley (1972-76), and as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand (1974).

Her research interests are in urban geography, and she has done extensive work on the topics of natural hazards response and urban housing. She has published 13 books and monographs, and numerous refereed journal articles, and received research honors from the Association of American Geographers. Her research has been sponsored largely through grants from the National Science Foundation, and she has served on several panels and committees for both the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences.

Palm’s prior administrative positions include Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at the Louisiana State University.