Penn State Names Interim Executive Vice President and Provost

Penn State has named an interim executive vice president and provost as it gets ready to conduct a national search to fill the position on a permanent basis.

Tracy Langkilde, the dean of Penn State’s Eberly College of Science, took over the post on Monday from Justin Schwartz, who was recently named the sole finalist for chancellor at the University of Colorado Boulder and is expected to leave State College this summer. Schwartz, who had been executive vice president and provost since 2022, will serve as a special advisor until his departure.

President Neeli Bendapudi said she selected Langkilde after consultation with faculty leaders, Commonwealth Campus chancellors, vice provosts and other top administrators.

“Tracy’s personal journey as an internationally renowned scholar, her understanding of undergraduate students through the thousands both within the Eberly College and the thousands more who pursue General Education there, her support of research excellence and graduate students and her commitment to leading collaboratively make her the ideal person to meet these needs at the university level,” Bendapudi said in a statement.

Langkilde, whose research focuses on herpetology and on how animals deal with changes in their environment, arrived at Penn State in 2007 as an assistant professor of biology. In 2016 she was promoted to full professor and appointed head of the Department of Biology.

She was named dean of the Eberly College of Science in 2020, leading a division with 460 faculty, 250 staff, 130 postdoctoral researchers, 1,200 graduate students and 3,800 undergraduates.

As interim executive vice president and provost, Langkilde will lead all Penn State academic units, including all colleges and campuses. She will also hold a key senior administrative role, serving as a member of President’s Council and chair Penn State’s Council of Academic Deans and the Academic Leadership Council.

Langkilde will be working together with faculty and administrative leaders to move forward an academic program and portfolio review, an overarching initiative to evaluate program offerings at every campus announced as part of the “road map for Penn State’s future” unveiled earlier this year. She will also lead academic leadership searches and will be tasked with continuing development of a “strategy for faculty and student retention, advancing graduate education and seeing through the reunification of Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law,” according to a news release.

“I’m grateful for this chance to lead this institution that means so much to so many, and I thank President Bendapudi for giving me this opportunity,” Langkilde said. “I have a deep respect for the shared governance that makes universities work, and I will be focused on listening to our community and collaborating with academic leaders to strengthen and advance Penn State.

“I’m also greatly looking forward to working with the excellent team in the provost’s office and the dedicated deans and chancellors across the commonwealth in enacting President Bendapudi’s vision to strengthen Penn State for the future.”

With Langkilde moving to the provost’s office, Mary Beth Williams, professor of chemistry and senior associate dean of science education, has been appointed acting dean of the Eberly College of Science. Williams joined the college in 2001 as an assistant professor and was elevated to a leadership role in 2009. She has overseen undergraduate education, research and administration, diversity and inclusion, undergraduate students at Eberly in interim roles.

“I am fortunate that we have an outstanding leader in the Eberly College of Science to assume the role of acting dean during this time,” Langkilde said.