Gregory N. Mandel is the senior vice president, provost and Laura H. Carnell Professor of Law at Temple University. As the university’s chief academic officer, he works with faculty and leadership to set the academic strategy and vision for the university’s future. His portfolio includes overseeing the university’s 17 schools and colleges; academic, faculty and student affairs; enrollment management; diversity, equity and inclusion; research; global engagement; information technology; and university strategic planning. During his tenure, Provost Mandel has appointed a diverse team of new university leaders, including deans, vice presidents and vice provosts, who are making meaningful contributions to Temple’s bright future.
Provost Gregory N. Mandel
Appointed to his current role in 2021, Provost Mandel is focused on delivering the promise of an exceptional and affordable education.
Provost Mandel worked with stakeholders across the university and beyond to develop a strategic plan that creates a passionate vision to define and elevate Temple’s educational value and access, thought leadership and community engagement. Created with a people-first approach, the strategic plan represents more than structure and process to Provost Mandel. It deliberately reflects Temple’s values.
In 2022, Temple generated more than 300 million in research expenditures, an all-time high for the university. Provost Mandel continues to build on this momentum and has advanced several initiatives that encourage interdisciplinary activity, including: establishing the Temple University Research Council to identify new growth opportunities and bring recognition to research activities and programs; distributing University Strategic Funds to help support new interdisciplinary engagements between schools and colleges, including for new academic programs, research, health equity initiatives and community engagement; and creating an interdisciplinary collaboration task force to identify practical, financial and historical barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration and to provide recommendations to enrich and expand opportunities in research and academic programs.
To advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, Provost Mandel is focused on student, faculty, and staff recruitment, retention, and support; creating premier opportunities and spaces for activities and efforts; and expanding community pathways. During his time as Provost, Temple successfully welcomed the most ethnically and geographically diverse first-year classes in its recorded history.
The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership (IDEAL) held an open house in April 2023 to celebrate the new location in the heart of campus.
Provost Mandel’s commitment to creating an environment that is welcoming and inclusive for all people is unwavering. With the university community, Provost Mandel helped launch the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University and the recommendations and initiatives established by the Blue Ribbon Commission on Antisemitism, including the formation of an inter-faith inclusion center and the opening of a new interfaith prayer room in the Howard Gittis Student Center for students of all faiths to pray, reflect and meditate on campus.
The mental health and wellness of the university community is at the center of Provost Mandel’s priorities at Temple University. He has advanced new initiatives including, establishing a new Health and Well-being Division, which serves as a primary entry point for all services related to health and wellness for students, faculty, and staff.
He has also increased resources to expand mental health services for students and added a new location for counseling at the Health Sciences Campus.
Temple University's Rome Campus
Global engagement has been rooted in the Temple experience for decades, and the university offers many meaningful opportunities. With campuses in Tokyo and Rome, Provost Mandel is building partnerships, programs, and new connections between Philadelphia and our academic communities around the world.
Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo.
Temple is enriching the student experience through new programs like the Global Cities Immersion Program and new entry year programs, which invite first-year students to begin their academic journey in Italy or Japan. Provost Mandel is also invested in the faculty experience with a new program that offers main campus faculty the option to live, teach and research at Temple University Japan for up to a year. He is dedicated to building and strengthening partnerships around the world and has done so most recently in China, Israel, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates.
These days, you will likely find Provost Mandel on campus meeting with faculty and students, dedicating his time to advancing key university priorities, and cheering on Temple’s athletes.
With an interdisciplinary background combining physics and law, research and pedagogy, and practice and community service, Provost Mandel has built a career that demonstrates the value of cross-disciplinary engagement.
Provost Mandel and students from Beasley School of Law
With deep roots in Philadelphia, Provost Mandel returned to his hometown in 2007 to join the faculty at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. He would later serve as dean of the Beasley School of Law for five years.
Provost Mandel is a leading international scholar on intellectual property law, innovation, and the intersection of law and technology. He is the author of more than 50 scholarly publications, including multiple intellectual property and patent law articles that were identified as the best of the year three times. His article Patently Non-Obvious was identified as one of the most cited patent law articles over a decade, and his experimental studies have been cited by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and in briefs filed before the United States Supreme Court.
Before entering academia, Provost Mandel practiced law with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, clerked for Judge Jerome Farris, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and interned with Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
He received his JD from Stanford Law School and his bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University with a double major in physics and astronomy. Prior to attending law school, he worked on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.