Laura Spitz named vice provost for international affairs

Laura Spitz
Spitz

Laura Spitz has been appointed vice provost for international affairs effective Dec. 1, Provost Michael Kotlikoff has announced. She has been serving as interim vice provost since July of this year.

“Laura has extensive experience in developing and guiding internationalization efforts at Cornell,” Kotlikoff said. “She is an effective leader for our interdisciplinary global initiative and will help enhance collaborations in ways that will bring departments and colleges together.”

As leader of the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs, Spitz also oversees a portfolio that includes Cornell Abroad, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and Cornell University Press.

Spitz works with schools, colleges and centers across Cornell’s campuses to support and help implement plans pertaining to Global Cornell, a university initiative aimed at strengthening Cornell’s international dimension. She chairs the Internationalization Council, comprising senior leaders from each college on the Ithaca campus and at Weill Cornell Medicine, and the university’s International Travel Advisory and Response Team, which works with the Office of Risk Management and Insurance and Cornell faculty and staff to oversee a comprehensive international travel policy.

In support of Cornell’s international presence, the vice provost’s office establishes policies that advance Cornell’s international agenda, promoting a wide range of international research collaborations and faculty and student exchanges with universities and research institutions around the globe. Spitz holds key responsibility for directing and approving the university’s memoranda of agreement and project agreements with international collaborators. Her office also welcomes foreign dignitaries and representatives from international academic institutions to Cornell from all quarters of the globe and prepares briefings for senior administrators when they travel abroad.

In addition, Spitz will oversee Cornell’s planned international offices – beginning with one in Shanghai slated to open in 2016 that will serve students, faculty, alumni and staff while also promoting Cornell’s visibility in the region.

“I look forward to working even more closely with Laura to enhance Cornell as a global center for excellent research, scholarship and teaching,” said President Elizabeth Garrett. “The many aspects of our global portfolio – including the education of our students as citizens of the world – are critical to Cornell’s success and the impact we can have globally.”

Spitz said: “I am excited about the tremendous energy and commitment shown by the faculty, students, and staff who make global education a part of their everyday lives. They are the foundation on which the Global Cornell Initiative builds.”

Prior to this appointment, Spitz had been serving as associate dean for international affairs at Cornell Law School and executive director of the school’s Clarke Center for International and Comparative Legal Studies. As associate dean, she was responsible for oversight and development of the school’s international programs, including international strategic partnerships, study abroad, student and faculty exchanges, visiting scholar and speaker series, and the Paris Summer Institute.

Before joining Cornell in 2012, Spitz taught at the University of Colorado, where she was an associate professor of law, as well as at Emory University and the University of New Mexico. Her research focuses on the intersection between international economic law and transnational integration in North America. She has taught continuing legal education programs and made presentations in her areas of expertise domestically and internationally, including at University College Dublin, the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto and Yale University, as well as before the 10th Circuit Judicial Conference and the Georgia Senate Committee on Bankruptcy Reform.

Spitz received her undergraduate degree in history from the University of Toronto, her law degree from the University of British Columbia, and her J.S.D. from Cornell Law School.

Media Contact

John Carberry