University of Chicago Booth School of Business Dean Sunil Kumar is leaving to become the next provost of Johns Hopkins University, effective September 1st, the Baltimore school announced today. The Indian-born Kumar becomes the school’s 15th provost and the first-ever Asian to hold the position.
Kumar just last year was appointed to a second five-year term as dean at Chicago Booth. In his tenure there, he is credited with helping raise more than $300 million, focusing on student recruitment, including increasing the female enrollment of full-time programs from 35 percent to 42 percent, and expanding courses for undergraduates, according to the Johns Hopkins release announcing his new role.
“While I am saddened to leave this great school that has been my home for the last six years, I am excited to begin this new opportunity in Baltimore,” Kumar wrote in an email to staffers, according to a Chicago Tribune report. An interim Booth dean will be announced soon by University of Chicago President Bob Zimmer, Kumar told the Tribune.
As provost at John Hopkins, Kumar will be the school’s chief academic officer and will work with the president and deans on university-wide collaboration, academic policy, diversity and student aid. He will replace Robert Lieberman, who announced in February his plans to return to full-time research and teaching in his field of race and inequality.
An operations management professor who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Kumar taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business for 14 years before joining Booth in 2011.
“Kumar’s style has been described as reserved and academic, and he’s known for his love of meatloaf,” reports the Tribune.
*Pictured above: Kumar snaps a selfie in one of multiple photos applicants to Chicago Booth were invited to write about as part of last year’s application process.
