Elizabeth Garrett was appointed provost and senior vice president for academic affairs on October 28, 2010, having served in that capacity on an interim basis since the previous August. As the university’s second-ranking officer, she oversees the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences as well as the Keck School of Medicine of USC and 16 other professional schools, in addition to the divisions of student affairs, libraries, information technology services, research, student religious life and enrollment services. She also sits on the governing board of the USC hospitals, and previously served as USC’s vice president for academic planning and budget, a position she had held since June 2006.
Garrett is the Frances R. and John J. Duggan Professor in the USC Gould School of Law. In addition to this primary faculty appointment, she has joint appointments in USC Dornsife and the School of Policy, Planning, and Development, as well as a courtesy appointment in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. In August 2009, she was appointed as one of five commissioners on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s independent political oversight agency. In January 2005, she was appointed to President George W. Bush’s nine-member bipartisan Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, which issued its report in November 2005. She formerly served as Director of the USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics and serves on the board of the Initiative and referendum Institute at USC.
Garrett graduated from the University of Oklahoma and University of Virginia Law School. She clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court and Judge Williams on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and served as legal counsel and legislative assistant for tax, budget and welfare reform issues for U.S. Senator David L. Boren. Before joining USC Law in 2003, she was a professor at University of Chicago Law School, where she also served as deputy dean for academic affairs. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, the University of Virginia Law School, Central European University in Budapest and the Interdisciplinary Center Law School in Israel.
