academics for accepted MT students

blaneyboy
Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:02:57 +0000

Well, noble Gaul, would you believe three presidents in six years? That’s going through presidents at a pretty lively clip.

The first was James Hester, who stepped down in 1975 (after 13 years at the helm) having, as you mention, sold off the University Heights campus to the city in 1973.

The second was Hester’s replacement. You lost track of him. John Sawhill served through 1980 and had to deal with enrollment decline. Sawhill, I seem to recall, came to NYU after heading up the Federal Energy Administration, the predecessor to today’s Department of Energy.

The third was John Brademas, who had been a member of Congress. Brademas took over in 1981 and served for ten years, stabilizing the place and turning it around.

Who led the place from 1980-81? I don’t know. There must have been a caretaker, an “interim” or “acting” president. So there may well have been four different leaders between 1975 and 1981.

There was a lot of turnover at the top at NYU in the 1970s and a period of considerable financial pain. It is to the institution’s great credit that it transformed itself in spite of these difficulties – and it’s also a mark of the leadership of the people who led it since 1980.