Janet Weiss

Professional Bio:

Janet A. Weiss is Vice Provost for Academic Affairs – Graduate Studies and Dean of the Rackham Graduate School.  As Vice Provost and Dean, she is responsible for the oversight and support of all of the University’s doctoral programs and many of the master’s programs.  She is the Provost Office advocate for policies and practices that benefit all graduate and professional students at the University.

Before assuming her current role in the summer of 2005, she served as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs from 2002-2005.  In that capacity she was responsible for a broad range of faculty and academic issues, including faculty promotion and tenure, family-friendly policies, facilities and space planning, and support for museums and libraries.

Professor Weiss has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan since 1983, with a joint appointment between the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.  She has served in a number of administrative and policy roles in both of her own schools, and in several important interdisciplinary centers and institutes.  She founded and directed the Nonprofit and Public Management Center to bring together a rich set of opportunities for research and community engagement for graduate students and faculty at Michigan.

Professor Weiss’ research is focused on public management and public policy with a special interest in the roles of information and ideas in the policy process.  She has also studied the interplay between policy design and the management of public programs.  Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Mental Health, and the Department of Education.  Her work on education policy, in particular, led to her involvement as an expert advisor to a group of major corporations in Michigan and more recently as an advisor to the Education Commission of the States’ Project on Governing America’s Schools, a member of the National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education at the Brookings Institution, and a member of the MacArthur Foundation Network on Teaching and Learning.