Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway appointed provost of Northwestern University

Jonathan Holloway, dean of Yale College and the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies, History, and American Studies, will become the next provost of Northwestern University, the two universities announced Nov. 21.

Holloway, who earned his Ph.D. in history from Yale in 1995, began his career at the University of California-San Diego, before joining the Yale faculty in 1999. He is a noted scholar of post-emancipation United States history, with a focus on social and intellectual history. His publications include “Confronting the Veil: Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche, 1919-1941” and “Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory and Identity in Black America Since 1940”; in 2015 he wrote an introduction for a new edition of W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Souls of Black Folk,” published by Yale University Press.

To Yale College students, Holloway is best known as dean, a role he assumed in July 2014. He previously held appointments as head of Calhoun College, chair of the Council of Heads of College, director of undergraduate studies, and chair of the Department of African American Studies. He has led or served as a member of several planning committees related to the upcoming increase in undergraduate enrollment. He received the William Clyde DeVane Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching in Yale College in 2009. 

“Dean Holloway has been a thoughtful and innovative steward of Yale’s undergraduate mission,” Salovey wrote in a campus-wide email. “He has been instrumental in paving the way for a smooth and successful expansion of Yale College, which will come to fruition next August with the opening of Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin colleges. He has been a calm and compassionate presence in turbulent times, and an unswervingly wise leader for the college and our wider campus.” (Read the full text of the announcement here.)

As provost Holloway will be Northwestern’s chief academic officer, charged with supervising the university’s educational policies and academic priorities, leading initiatives in undergraduate and graduate education, overseeing faculty appointments and promotions, and managing allocation of academic resources and preparation of the university budget. In announcing the appointment, Northwestern President Morton Schapiro wrote that he was “thrilled to have [this] outstanding scholar and exceptionally able administrator as my partner in the academic leadership of Northwestern.”

In writing to the Yale College community, Holloway praised the many students, administrators, and faculty with whom he has worked, saying that “from any perspective one thing remains clear: this is a very special place.”

Holloway and his family — his wife, Aisling Colón, and their children, Emerson and Ellison — will remain at Yale through the end of the current academic year; his new appointment begins on July 1, 2017. A search committee and plans for identifying the next dean of Yale College will be announced soon.