27 Facts About Neil Rudenstine

Neil Leon Rudenstine was born on January 21,1935 and is an American scholar, educator, and administrator.

Neil Rudenstine served as president of Harvard University from 1991 to 2001.

Neil Rudenstine's father was a Ukrainian Jew who emigrated from Kyiv, his mother a Roman Catholic and the daughter of immigrants from Campobasso, Italy.

Neil Rudenstine was raised as a Roman Catholic and grew up speaking Italian with his mother's family.

Neil Rudenstine pointed out that he had attended an Episcopal boarding school and a university with Presbyterian roots.

Neil Rudenstine taught at Harvard from 1964 to 1968 as an instructor and then assistant professor in the Department of English and American Literature and Language.

From 1968 to 1988, Neil Rudenstine was a faculty member and senior administrator at Princeton.

Neil Rudenstine held a series of administrative posts at Princeton:.

Neil Rudenstine served as president of Harvard from 1991 to 2001.

Neil Rudenstine gained a reputation as an effective fundraiser, overseeing a period of highly successful growth in Harvard's endowment.

Neil Rudenstine led Harvard's first university-wide fundraising campaign, raising more than $2.6 billion, surpassing the goal of $2.1 billion.

Under Neil Rudenstine, endowments grew from $4.7 billion in 1991 to more than $15 billion.

Neil Rudenstine developed many interdisciplinary programs, such as the Mind, Brain and Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, the University Committee on the Environment, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Neil Rudenstine reorganized the university's administrative structure so that the school deans worked as a consultative cabinet, and he recreated the provost position to oversee the interfaculty initiatives created during his presidency.

Neil Rudenstine oversaw the establishment of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which merged Radcliffe College with Harvard.

Neil Rudenstine was committed to providing increased financial aid and scholarships to students from a range of financial circumstances.

Neil Rudenstine was known as mild-mannered and avoided internal controversy, usually taking a hands-off approach to leading the university.

The committee cited the university's strong record as an employer and recommended additional measures to build on its offerings for employees, which Neil Rudenstine endorsed and advocated for during the remainder of his tenure.

Neil Rudenstine returned from his absence in February 1994 and went on to serve seven more years until stepping down in 2001.

In 2005, Rudenstine was invited to join the board of Philadelphia's Barnes Foundation, responsible for the art collections of Albert C Barnes.

Since 2017, Neil Rudenstine has chaired the Advisory Board for ARTstor and taught a yearly freshman seminar in 20th-century poetry at Harvard.

Neil Rudenstine is an honorary Fellow of New College, Oxford and Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, and Provost Emeritus at Princeton University.

In 1998, as president of Harvard University, Neil Rudenstine was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford, in a ceremony in which the president of Yale University, Richard Levin, was honored.

Neil Rudenstine is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a former director of the American Council on Education, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, and the Committee for Economic Development.

Neil Rudenstine has been a member of various advisory groups, including the National Commission on Preservation and Access and the Council on Library Resources.

Neil Rudenstine has served as a trustee of the College Entrance Examination Board and the Wooster School, of which he is a graduate.

Neil Rudenstine serves on the boards of the New York Public Library, the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the Barnes Foundation, and many others in the United States and in Europe.