Jennifer King Rice
Senior Vice President and Provost
Jennifer King Rice
Senior Vice President and Provost
Jennifer King Rice is the University of Maryland’s senior vice president and provost. As the chief academic officer, she steers the university’s academic enterprise in accordance with its mission, including providing strategic direction for its 12 schools and colleges. An accomplished administrator and educator, Rice manages a diverse portfolio, including academic planning and programs, enrollment management, community engagement, faculty affairs, international affairs, academic innovation, and institutional research, planning and assessment.
Rice’s leadership is driven by her commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; innovation in teaching and learning; and community-driven impact.
In her first year as Provost, Rice spearheaded the university’s strategic plan, Fearlessly Forward: In Pursuit of Excellence and Impact for the Public Good, embodying UMD's vision of service to humanity. Her innovative approach led to a campuswide commitment to reimagining learning, taking on humanity’s grand challenges, investing in people and communities, and advancing the public good.
Since becoming Provost in 2021, she has taken a fresh look at budgetary strategies for academic programs and resources, and has championed the development, review, and implementation of new academic policies and regulations.
Rice previously served as dean of UMD’s College of Education, where she focused her efforts on advancing excellence, equity and social justice from preschool through graduate school. Under her leadership, the college advanced in national rankings and received unprecedented research funding. Rice has served on the faculty and in college leadership roles at UMD for more than 25 years, and was recognized as a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.
Before joining the faculty at Maryland, she was a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Rice’s scholarship draws on the disciplines of economics and philosophy to explore policy that addresses excellence and equity in K-12 education systems. An expert on school finance and teacher policy, she regularly advises state and federal agencies.
A prolific scholar, she has served on the editorial boards of American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and Education Finance and Policy. She is a fellow of the American Education Research Association, and has been a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellow and a visiting fellow at the Urban Institute. She is a past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy.
She completed her B.S. in mathematics and English at Marquette University and earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in educational administration and social foundations from Cornell University.