Dr. Rebecca Karoff joined the University of Texas System in February 2016 as Associate Vice Chancellor for
Academic Affairs. With more than 25 years working in public higher education at the system level, first in
Wisconsin and now in Texas, she is dedicated to utilizing the power of the system as a catalyst for quality
educational attainment, equity, innovation and transformation in the 21st-century global society.
Dr. Karoff is responsible for leading and supporting student success initiatives system-wide. Her work
addresses the student success continuum, PK-20 and into the workforce, and recognizes the remarkable
responsibility and opportunity of the University of Texas System to achieve more equitable access and
outcomes for the state’s increasingly diverse students. She is the primary architect of the UT System’s student
success framework, and collaborates with institutional colleagues across the UT System to ensure student
financial well-being, effective advising, and students’ sense of academic and social belonging. Her work
includes leadership of the UT System’s momentum-building strategy on Open Educational Resources (OER),
strengthening curricular innovation, and working with faculty to embrace their roles in student success. All her
work is data-informed, equity-centered and quality-driven, and she is interested in expanded approaches to
measuring student success.
Beyond the UT System, she is a member of the Texas Transfer Alliance, a joint effort among the Charles A.
Dana Center, the Texas Success Center, the Texas Association of Community Colleges, and four of the state’s
public university systems (Texas A&M University System, Texas State University System, University of North
Texas System and University of Texas System) to improve transfer student outcomes. She is active in NASH,
the National Association of System Heads, and is a co-author of the NASH Equity Action Framework, a tool
designed for university systems to assess their progress toward, and act on the adoption and integration of
essential equity practices through sustained engagement. She chairs the Equity Work Group of DOERS3, the
Driving OER Sustainability for Student Success Collaborative, work resulting in the OER Equity Blueprint and
Equity Through OER Rubric, developed to aid institutions in intentional engagement with equity as they build
capacity on OER.
