Meet the Provost
Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. has been provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at San José State University since 2019. In that role, he leads a division spanning enrollment management, undergraduate and graduate education, faculty success, academic innovation, institutional effectiveness, the university library, and eight academic colleges. He oversees an annual budget of approximately $416 million and has guided investments in faculty hiring, student advising and success programming, new academic programs, faculty research support, and professional and continuing education programs.
Under his leadership, SJSU has launched an academic master plan process, reorganized advising around the needs of early-career students, made significant progress in first- and second-year retention, and launched SJSU Online. More than 360 tenure-line faculty have been hired since 2019. He has supported the growth of the campus’s Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities program, which will expend nearly $100 million in 2026-2027, and supported the expansion of new centers, including the Center for Faculty Excellence and Teaching Innovation and the AI Center for Civic and Social Good. Under his leadership, SJSU launched an AI Fellows Program and other initiatives supporting thoughtful uses of artificial intelligence in teaching and learning. He has helped secure over $8 million in corporate gifts and supported projects that have brought federal and state dollars to support SJSU’s dynamic academic ecosystem.
Previously, at the University of Arizona, Del Casino served as vice president and interim senior vice provost for Academic Initiatives and Student Success and vice provost for Digital Learning and Student Engagement. He helped lead the $82 million Student Success District, strengthened retention initiatives, and launched Arizona Online. Undergraduate online enrollment grew from 150 students in Fall 2015 to an estimated 2,300 in fall 2019, while online degrees and certificates expanded to more than 100 options. He also helped implement the 100% Engagement Initiative, enabling hundreds of experiential learning opportunities to count toward students’ academic records.
Del Casino is a social and medical geographer whose work addresses health, technology, robotics, labor, and political ecology. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky, an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin, and a B.A. from Bucknell University. Recent publications include “Robots, Robotic Technologies, and Labour Geographies” (2025) and “The Governance of Artificial Intelligence in the ‘Autonomous City’” (2023). He is also CO-PI on two recent grants including a $4.36 million Department of Education award and a $1.25 million NSF ADVANCE partnership.
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