Patricia Gumport

Patricia J. Gumport was appointed Stanford University’s first Vice Provost for Graduate Education in January, 2007. Assuming additional responsibilities, her title was subsequently changed to Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs. Dr. Gumport concurrently serves as Professor of Education and Director of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research at Stanford University (SIHER). She also serves as a Co-Director of the Stanford Leadership Academy and as a strategic advisor for Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, and the Stanford Alumni Association.

As a sociologist of higher education, Dr. Gumport has focused her research and teaching on key changes in the academic landscape and organizational character of American higher education. She has studied the dynamics of academic change in several arenas—to illuminate what facilitates change and what impedes it—across and within different types of colleges and universities. Driven by an abiding interest in knowledge change, Dr. Gumport has analyzed how organizational, intellectual, political, economic, and professional interests redefine the content, structure, and relative legitimacy of academic fields. Specific studies include: the emergence and institutionalization of interdisciplinary fields; professional socialization across academic disciplines; organizational restructuring and selective investment; the ascendance of industry logic in public higher education; forces that promote and inhibit academic collaboration; decision-making about appropriate organizational forms to support new ideas; and leading organizational change for optimal effectiveness with internal and external stakeholders. Her research within the United States and Europe examines how universities that are ostensibly competitors determine when and how to collaborate. Her analyses include implications for academic leaders who pursue strategic initiatives, manage environmental pressures and stakeholder interests, and foster leadership development. Her latest book, Academic Fault Lines: The Rise of Industry Logic in Public Higher Education (2019), is a deep, historical analysis of organizational and knowledge change in higher education in which she examines how leading administrators and faculty across sectors have addressed profound shifts in societal expectations for what colleges and universities should be and do, offering valuable insights as we forge ahead into an uncertain future.