Meet the Provost

Charles W. Gossett
Interim Provost and Vice President for 
Academic Affairs

Charles W. Gossett was appointed Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at California State University, Sacramento in June 2012.  He comes to this role from the post of Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies which he began in August 2009.  He also holds the rank of professor in the Department of Government and the Department of Public Policy & Administration.  Before coming to Sacramento State, he served as Chair of the Department of Political Science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona from 2002 until 2009, and he served a year as the Faculty Associate for Academic Programs in the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences.  Prior to that he was the Interim Chair of the Political Science Department and Director of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, where he taught for ten years.  He has also had teaching appointments at the University of Botswana in Gaborone, Botswana in 1976; Hope College in Holland, Michigan from 1978-79;  Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Swaziland in Kwaluseni, Swaziland in 1982; and Fulbright Scholar at the Centre for the Study of HIV and AIDS at the University of Botswana in 2008.  Dr. Gossett also held various research and administrative positions in the federal and District of Columbia city governments between 1981 and 1992.

Dr. Gossett’s areas of research are in the areas of public sector human resources management, state and local intergovernmental relations, and African politics.  He has published articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries on civil service reform and public service motivation; on how state and local governments deal with one another on issues related to lesbian and gay rights; on public opinion on same-sex marriage; and on the impact of AIDS on governance in southern Africa.

Dr. Gossett graduated with a B.A. (magna cum laude) in political science from Hope College and a M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.

Staff:

Cheryl J. Johnson 
Executive Assistant - cjohnson@csus.edu

Kathy Mine 
Secretary - minekh@csus.edu