Elizabeth Van Wie Davis: What Do Administrators Do?

Elizabeth Van Wie Davis has spent decades working in academia. She is also an expert on foreign affairs who has consulted with multiple members of the United States government on issues related to Asia. She has worked as the Director and Professor at the Colorado School of Mines, as well as the Vice Dean at a Colorado School of Mines strategic partner since 2009.

If you enjoy working with other people and have found serving on educational committees rewarding or interesting, academic administration might be a career you’d enjoy. A professional like Elizabeth Van Wie Davis can find opportunities in areas such as career counseling, human resources, student affairs, institutional research/planning, advising, business and finance.

Higher education as you know it would not function without academic administrators. Below are just some of the many duties that these professionals handle:

•    Management
Academic administrators manage personnel, policy and budget.
•    Coordination
Academic administrators coordinate and communicate, facilitating the teachers needed for an educational institution. Their work involves meetings and one-on-one conversations.
•    Shaping
Academic administrators shape and change the priorities and practices of an institution as needed.

Each area of academic administration will, of course, have its own duties. If you enter academic administration, your job might be completely different from those of Elizabeth Van Wie Davis, but it will be equally-important to the functionality of higher education.

Elizabeth Van Wie Davis: Academic Career

Elizabeth Van Wie Davis has worked in academia for decades. Though she took a hiatus after seventeen years to work with the United States government, she has never stopped to academic agenda. In 2009, she began working with the Colorado School of Mines as Director and Professor. She also held the title of Vice Dean at a Colorado School of Mines strategic partner.
While working at the Colorado School of Mines, Elizabeth Van Wie Davis has continued to share her love and knowledge of Asia. She works on energy-related policy issues and has authored four books:

•    “China and the Law of the Sea Convention: Follow the Sea”
•    “Chinese Perspectives on Sino-American Relations”
•    “Islam, Oil and Geopolitics”
•    “Ruling, Resources and Religion in China.”

Dr. Davis’s fifth book, “Ethics of Non-Warfare in Asia,” which assesses the roles of new technologies in the changing status of conflict in Asia, is in progress.

Elizabeth Van Wie Davis’s education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Arts from Shimer College, with which she graduated at age nineteen, a Master of Arts in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Foreign Affairs, also from the University of Virginia.