Collins to lead Ford School

By Laurel Thomas Gnagey

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Susan M. Collins, an expert in international economics, has been selected as the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, pending approval by the Board of Regents.

(Photo courtesy Brookings Institution)

President Mary Sue Coleman and Provost Teresa Sullivan, in consultation with the board's Personnel, Compensation and Governance Committee, announced the appointment of June 8. Her appointment, effective Sept. 1, follows an international search.

In addition to serving as a professor at Georgetown University, Collins has a part-time affiliation with the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow in economic studies—a position she has held since 1992.

"President Coleman and I are extremely pleased that Dr. Collins is assuming the leadership of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at a time of exciting growth in its instructional programs and research centers," Sullivan says. "Her research and experience position her to develop the internationalization of the Ford School and to enhance its reputation for rigorous analysis of policy issues. We are confident that Dr. Collins will promote the Ford School as a national leader in education, research and practice."

Collins will hold the title of the Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy. The Weills, friends of President and Mrs. Ford, endowed the deanship with a $3 million gift to establish a discretionary fund that Ford School deans may draw on to support the school's highest priorities. Coleman says the Weills are pleased with the selection of Collins.

"I talked with Sandy Weill and he was delighted with the appointment. He believes that Susan's scholarly work is enormously important for the 21st century and that she will provide great leadership and visibility for the Ford School," Coleman said.

Collins' expertise in economics includes the areas of macroeconomics and trade. Her research centers on determinants of economic growth, issues raised by increasing cross-national economic integration and exchange rate regimes in developed and developing economies.

"It is a privilege to have the opportunity to lead the school in the midst of so many exciting initiatives," Collins says of the school that in recent years has added joint doctoral programs with economics, sociology and political science; expanded its faculty; established several new research centers; built a new facility, the Joan and Sanford Weill Hall; and created an upper-division undergraduate program leading to a Bachelor of Arts in public policy.

"The Ford School's strong faculty and extensive connections to excellent programs throughout the University of Michigan provide a particularly fertile environment for undertaking and communicating policy-relevant research," she says. "I am particularly excited about working with faculty, staff, students and the broader community to enhance the international dimensions of the Ford School's myriad activities."

Collins received her Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1980, summa cum laude, from Harvard University. She earned a doctoral degree in economics in 1984 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prior to her position at Georgetown, Collins served as assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, beginning in 1984, and rose to associate professor in 1988. She moved to Georgetown in 1992 as associate professor and in 1998 became professor. She was a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund Research Department during 2001.

Collins served as a senior staff economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers from 1989-90. She chaired the American Economics Association (AEA) Committee on the Status of Minority Groups during 1995-98. She currently is a member of the AEA Executive Committee (elected) and the AEA Committee on Minority Groups in the Economics Profession.

She is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Institute for International Economics and a member of the Advisory Editorial Staff of Economic Letters. Since 2000 Collins has been a member of the editorial board of the World Bank Research Observer. From 2001-04, she served as associate editor of The Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Collins has published extensively in professional journals and volumes, and has served as editor for a number of publications. Among her awards and fellowships, Collins received the Sloan Foundation Grant: Offshoring and White Collar Work (2004-06); the Ford Foundation Grant: Import, Exports and the American Worker (1993-98); the Galbraith Prize for excellence in graduate teaching, Harvard University (1989); and the Olin Fellowship, National Bureau of Economic Research (1986-87).

Her leadership at Georgetown includes current service as chair of the Rank and Tenure Committee, Department of Economics and as a member of the Graduate School Standing Committee on Academic Integrity. She also was director of graduate studies in her department, 2000-01.