When Interim University President Leah Ward Sears (80L) announced that former Oxford College Dean Badia Ahad would become Emory University’s next provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, the announcement stated that Ahad’s term would last only two years.
Compared to its peer institutions, Emory has a higher turnover rate among higher-level administrators, with the University having more provosts than any of its peers since 2000. Sears said that she hopes to “stabilize” the University’s leadership. Before Ahad’s appointment, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Lanny Liebeskind had been serving as interim provost since the start of 2025.
Sears said in an interview with The Emory Wheel the University’s search for a provost had “failed” for reasons she could not disclose.
According to Sears, she did not want to wait longer to find a permanent provost. Instead, she chose to appoint Ahad without an official search, which was part of the reasoning behind her two-year term.
“We needed someone to come in immediately and fix things and get things going,” Sears said.
Ahad did not comment on whether she could remain as Emory’s provost for longer than two years in response to an email from The Emory Wheel. However, Ahad wrote that she is “honored” to take on the two-year commitment.
“As someone who knows Emory and has worked closely with our deans and academic leaders during my time as dean of Oxford College, I welcome the opportunity to serve our faculty, staff and students on a broader scale,” Ahad wrote.
Outside of Ahad, Mary Lee Hardin Willard Dean of the Candler School of Theology Jonathan Strom is the only administrator of all Emory deans and top-level academic officials to have a two-year term.
Strom, who has spent his career researching post-Reformation German religious history, said he decided to take the two-year term because it would allow him to improve Candler before he returns to teaching.
“I’m not resigning from this position or stepping down from this position in order to go someplace else,” Strom said. “What I want to do is continue to teach at Emory and be part of Candler.”
Strom emphasized that when he came to Emory, he never thought he would have a career in administration.
“I came to teach and came to research, and administration was something I’ve kind of gotten into bit by bit, but it wasn’t part of my plan,” Strom said.
Despite only being in the role for about a year and a half, Strom is proud of his work as dean, citing the creation of the La Mesa Graduate Certificate in Theological Studies Program, a hybrid certificate “designed to increase the intercultural competencies of students” as one of his top accomplishments. The program allows students to earn a certificate for religions that do require a master’s degree for ministerial ordination.
“We’re really the only program that has fully accredited coursework for a certificate like this, and so it does instruction in Spanish, Korean and English,” Strom said. “It’s got this really diverse people that otherwise wouldn’t be in it, but they’re working at a really high level, and we’ve been able to firm that up in this past year.”
Finally, Strom highlighted that the University has excellent leadership.
“You’ve got a really great set of deans at Emory,” Strom said. “They’re a highly talented, really motivated bunch of people. That’s been one of the joys of being in this is getting to know them better and working with them and seeing what they do.”
Spencer Friedland (26C) is the Editor-in-Chief of The Emory Wheel. He is double majoring in Philosophy and Film. Outside of the Wheel he is a member of Emory's Honor Council and Franklin Fellowship. After college he is planning on attending law school.
