Professional News

UK Names Assistant Provost for International Affairs

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 12, 2011) — The University of Kentucky welcomed a global administrator with over 25 years of experience to its international team this August.

Gary Gaffield has been appointed assistant provost of International Affairs.

Gaffield will work with Associate Provost of International Programs Susan Carvalho and the Office of International Affairs. This new position is a reconfiguration of the line that has been vacant since the May 2010 retirement of David Bettez, former director of International Affairs and director of External Affairs.

Gaffield brings to UK his nearly three decades of executive-level expertise in international program development, strategic planning, financial management, assessment, foundation and government relations and international programs.

He is the former director of the Iraq University Linkages Program for the Academy for Educational Development (now FHI-360), an international development NGO in Washington DC. Prior to his time at the AED, Gaffield served as deputy executive director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars and Fulbright Scholar Program.

Gaffield has 25 years of experience as an administrator at Wittenberg University, where he served as vice provost. In that role, his responsibilities included strategic direction of academic policies, programs, and budgets, and oversight of international education, as well as oversight of programs ranging from career development to the East Asian Institute and institutional research and assessment. 

"We look forward to the continued enhancement of our colleges’ international initiatives, as a result of his expertise, and of the networks he has already built across the arena of global higher education,” said UK Provost Kumble Subbaswamy.

At UK, Gaffield’s primary responsibilities will include management and negotiation of institutional partnerships, the identification and facilitation of promising multi-college global grant opportunities, implementation and adaptation of policies related to international recruitment and international education opportunities and assistance with development initiatives.

“Gary brings significant added firepower to UK’s internationalization plans,” said Carvalho. “His experience in securing and managing international grants, as well as his track record of effective and consultative management, will accelerate many projects, such as the approval of the undergraduate Certificate of Global Scholarship.  It will also lead to many new initiatives, as we seek to expand our connections, for example, in Iraq and in Indonesia, the destinations of recent State Department investment.”

Gaffield’s professional activities include serving as councilor for the Council on Undergraduate Research (2000-2006) and member of the steering committee for the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges (1994-2000).  He has presented papers and conducted workshops at numerous conferences, including the Society of Research Administrators, Council on Undergraduate Research, History of Education Society, and the American Culture Association. Most recently, he chaired a session entitled “Lessons from Iraq: Institutional Partnerships in Postconflict Societies," at the 2011 NAFSA Annual Conference in Vancouver.