Nursing Dean Laurie M. Lauzon Clabo has been appointed Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of Wayne State University effective August 21. She will serve while WSU searches for a permanent Provost. Dr. Ramona Benkert, Nursing’s Associate Dean for Academic and Clinical Affairs, has been appointed Interim Dean of the College of Nursing while Dr. Clabo serves as Interim Provost.

Dean of Wayne State’s College of Nursing since April 2015, Dr. Clabo is a nationally recognized leader in nursing. She is a member of a number of editorial boards and is a frequent national speaker on issues related to workforce development and nursing education. 

Dr. Clabo an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Program and the AACN-Wharton Executive Leadership Program and has served in a variety of leadership roles in professional organizations.  She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

In a campus wide communication, President Wilson commended Dr. Clabo’s work leading the campus as chair of the WSU public health committee, which informed the initial COVID-19 response as well as the plans for the fall semester. President Wilson noted that Dr. Clabo “is highly respected across campus and has demonstrated exceptional leadership for both the college and the university. During her tenure, the College of Nursing has flourished, and her accomplishments include significant growth in philanthropy, the reversal of a decline and now solid growth in research funding and graduate enrollment, and an extraordinary rise in national rankings.” He continued, “We ask a lot of our deans, and Laurie has delivered for her college and been a valuable asset for the broader university.”

Provost Clabo earned a bachelor's in nursing from the University of Windsor, a master's in nursing administration from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a PhD in nursing from the University of Rhode Island.