Josephine Broude, the executive assistant to the provost at Yale for over 30 years, died on Dec. 22 at her home in New Haven. She was 95 years old.
Starting in 1965, Broude managed the Office of the Provost under 10 provosts.
Her book “The Provost of Yale University: a history of the office 1919-1994,” which provided the history of the office as well as its incumbents, was published by Yale University Press in 2002. For the University’s Tercentennial in 2001, Broude collected the major 20th-century reports by committees of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which became the core of the university’s governance and historic documents now available online.
Charles Long, the senior deputy provost for many years, said that Broude was an unusual combination of public and private. “As the executive assistant to the provost, Josie knew and interacted in a friendly and outgoing manner with hundreds of faculty and staff. Through her work she came to know nearly everything and everyone at Yale,” he said.
In addition, Broude was a fellow of Silliman College, served several terms as a member of the Board of Governors of Mory’s, and was a graduate secretary of the Elizabethan Club.
Josephine Rachel Broude was born on May 25, 1927 in New York City, the daughter of Emanuel and Eva (Lieberson) Rosen. She graduated from Antioch College in 1949, where she met her husband, Henry, who was the Philip G. Bartlett Professor of Economics until his death in 2007. Before coming to Yale, she worked in the architecture firm Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott in Boston, and later as an interior designer with Douglas Orr at the American Institute of Architects in New Haven.
