Office of the Provost

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education

Laura Brown

Laura Brown

The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education coordinates and oversees wide areas of undergraduate education relevant to all seven undergraduate schools and colleges. Its goal is to enhance both the quality and the range of educational opportunities available to all Cornell undergraduates. Laura Brown, the current vice provost, holds the John Wendell Anderson chair in the department of English. She is responsible for formal and strategic academic initiatives that involve instructional support, diversity, undergraduate research, academic integrity, and university-wide course offerings, and she directs programs that complement and expand academic learning including faculty-centered living/learning programs and the new student reading project.

Campus-Wide Academic Initiatives

University Courses

The University Courses initiative is designed to provide a common academic experience for undergraduate students through a cross-college curriculum of courses that foster intellectual discovery, promote debate, and address complex issues of the day.

Student studying painting

Reading project participants engage in visual analysis of artwork at the Johnson Museum

New Student Reading Project

The New Student Reading Project provides entering students with a summer reading assignment and a series of orientation activities designed to introduce them to the college learning experience and to the academic scope of the university.

Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives

The Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives provides vision and coordination for academic initiatives designed to promote diversity goals for the undergraduate student body, supporting university-wide coordination for academic student diversity efforts, and providing guidance and referrals to enable students to access campus resources. This office oversees the NYS Opportunity Programs, including the Educational Opportunity Program, the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (CSTEP), and the Cornell Professional Opportunities Program (CPOP).

Brenna Maguire with child in Africa

Cornell student Brenna McGuire '10 at Machame Hospital in Tanzania

Engaged Learning + Research

Engaged Learning + Research provides strategic academic support for the promotion of citizenship and service within the educational mission of the university. The center offers expertise and direction, organizes curricular offerings, and promotes collaborations that are designed to enhance academic opportunities for public engagement. The center also makes available grants and other resources for teachers, researchers, and students.

Office of Undergraduate Research

The Office of Undergraduate Research provides strategic leadership for advancing undergraduate research across the university, generating information, serving as liaison, and enhancing the institution's awareness of developments around undergraduate research in U.S. higher education more broadly.

Materials Science and Engineering students in the lab

Materials Science and Engineering students in the lab

Academic Integrity

The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education supports a range of initiatives for faculty and students that are designed to develop and enhance efforts to maintain a climate of academic integrity. The Essential Guide to Academic Integrity at Cornell helps students learn the requirements and key concepts of academic integrity.

Teaching and Learning Support

Center for Teaching Excellence

The Center for Teaching Excellence supports faculty and graduate students through a range of programs that emphasize the importance of life-long learning in the development of outstanding teachers, and that encourages an atmosphere in which teachers may discover their own most effective teaching methods.

Learning Strategies Center

The Learning Strategies Center provides academic support to undergraduate students to help them succeed in their formal course work. The Center supports specific core introductory courses, and assists students in the development of effective approaches to mastering the academic rigors of Cornell. The Learning Strategies Center also coordinates the University's Prefreshman Summer Program.

Office of Internal Transfer

The Office of Internal Transfer assists undergraduate students who are considering transfer between schools or colleges within Cornell. The director of Internal Transfer provides advice for students who are unsure of their broad academic interests, and helps students discover and pursue their best academic fit.

Assessment Processes

The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education oversees and coordinates assessment processes across the campus, providing support and information to faculty and programs, and advancing efforts in collecting and using information about student learning.

Living/Learning Programs

Jeff Hancock and Garrick Blalock

Jeff Hancock and Garrick Blalock are house deans at William Keeton House on West Campus

West Campus House Professor/Deans

The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education oversees the House Professor/Deans in the West Campus House System, offering upper-level students an engaged community that fosters personal discovery and growth and nurtures scholarship and creativity.

North Campus Faculty Programs

North Campus Faculty Programs supports faculty in residence and faculty fellows in the North Campus residence halls, with the aims of reinforcing the centrality of intellectual life at the university; encouraging intellectual curiosity, risk-taking, and exploration; inspiring learning outside the classroom; unifying and bridging academic specialization to offer a one-university experience; helping students develop core competencies; and advising and mentoring first-year students.

Faculty-in-Residence Program

Faculty Fellows Programs