Christopher Alan Bracey, who has served as interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs since June 2021, has been named the permanent provost of the George Washington University, President Mark S. Wrighton announced Friday.
The provost and executive vice president for academic affairs is the chief academic officer of the university and has ultimate responsibility for the entirety of the university’s academic enterprise, including the strategic and operational leadership of the various schools and colleges, their deans, all teaching and research activities, including undergraduate and graduate, and academic support units such as the libraries.
“Chris is an outstanding professor, legal scholar and academic leader who has served our university with great distinction for many years,” Wrighton said. “It is clear that he understands our university’s history, culture and traditions, particularly in his work improving the student experience and collaborating closely with the faculty. An essential goal of the provost is to enhance the quality and impact of education, research and patient care at the university. I am confident he will ensure that the university is strongly positioned in each of these areas as we embark on our third century.”
As interim provost, Bracey has already strengthened the university’s academic enterprise, collaborating closely with the faculty and building strong relationships with the university’s academic leaders to oversee critical work to enhance the student experience and advance the university’s academic reputation. He led the academic transition back to in-person instruction this past fall and continues to ensure faculty and students receive the resources and support needed to achieve their academic and scholarly goals.
“I am incredibly honored to be named provost of the George Washington University,” Bracey said. “Every day, our students, faculty and staff work hard to advance the frontier of knowledge through the production and dissemination of impactful research and fulfill our promise of being a world-class research and learning institution. Our students graduate with the knowledge, passion, courage and capacity to transform the world. It is a true privilege to continue to collaborate with so many incredible colleagues as we confront new challenges in higher education and work to achieve our shared aspiration of academic preeminence.”
Bracey has also skillfully guided several significant university initiatives. He launched the work of the Diversity Program Review Team, which will assess the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and develop a sustainable diversity action plan. He also represents the administration on the steering committee for the Shared Governance Task Force, which aims to build consensus among faculty, administration and the Board of Trustees about the meaning of shared governance at the university.
Bracey has prioritized the continued expansion and enhancement of the university’s research enterprise, including naming Pamela Norris, a distinguished research administrator and scholar, vice provost for research this past November.
Bracey joined the university’s law faculty in 2008 and has held several academic and faculty leadership positions. He was named vice provost for faculty affairs in 2016 and has continued in that position in a dual appointment with his interim provost role. He previously served as the university law school’s senior associate dean for academic affairs and as its interim dean.
Prior to his arrival at the university, Bracey, a leading legal expert on U.S. race relations, individual rights and criminal procedure, taught at Washington University School of Law and Northwestern University School of Law. He is the author of Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice and co-author of The Dred Scott Case: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.
Bracey is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and Harvard Law School, where he served as supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review.