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Elizabeth Garrett, A founder of the USC U.S.-China Institute, passes away

As Vice President for Academic Affairs and Budget and then as Provost, Garrett helped launch the institute in 2006 and supported its growth.

March 7, 2016
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Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett died at home on March 6. She was 52 and was in her first year as the university’s president. Working with USC President Steven Sample and Provost C.L. “Max” Nikias, Garrett oversaw the establishment of the USC U.S.-China Institute in 2006. She recruited the institute’s director and worked with faculty from across the university to launch the institute. She continued to support the institute when President Nikias named her provost in 2010.

A distinguished legal scholar, Garrett served in government in several roles. She was a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and a legislative director for U.S. Senator David Boren. President George W. Bush appointed her to a bipartisan panel on tax reform. President Barack Obama appointed her to be an Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, but she elected to stay at USC. She served on the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Prior to coming to USC, Garrett taught and was deputy dean at the University of Chicago School of Law. She was recognized as a distinguished alumna of both the University of Oklahoma and the University of Virginia.  Garrett also taught at Harvard, Virginia, and in Europe and Israel. Garrett came to USC in 2003 and became the university’s executive vice provost in 2005.

Garrett’s primary scholarly interests were legislative process, direct democracy, the federal budget and tax process, study of democratic institutions and statutory interpretation. She was the co-author of the fourth edition of the leading casebook on legislation and statutory interpretation, Cases and Materials on Legislation: Statutes and the Creation of Public Policy, and co-editor of Statutory Interpretation Stories and Fiscal Challenges: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy.

Garrett also published more than 50 articles, book chapters and essays analyzing budget policy, campaign finance laws, courts and political parties, various congressional procedures, judicial review of regulatory statutes, the initiative process and the California recall.

Garrett’s husband, Andrei Marmor, is a professor of law at Cornell University.

USC President C.L. “Max” Nikias’s letter to the USC community on the passing of Elizabeth Garrett
http://www.president.usc.edu/passing-of-elizabeth-garrett/

Cornell Sun article
http://cornellsun.com/2016/03/07/cornells-president-elizabeth-garrett-dies-at-age-52-less-than-one-year-after-assuming-office/

 

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