Henry Bienen
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Henry Bienen is the current president of Northwestern University. He was elected president on June 13, 1994 and took office on January 1, 1995. Bienen succeeded Arnold Weber as president of Northwestern. During President Bienen's tenure, Northwestern has undergone many changes. The average SAT score for entering freshman has increased by more than 125 points, the total university budget has doubled to $1.4 billion, the university's endowment has tripled to approximately $ 6 billion and the amount of sponsored research done at Northwestern has doubled to more than $350 million annually. For the first time ever in 1997, Northwestern was listed by US News and World Report in the top ten universities for undergraduates. Northwestern has been ranked consistently in the top 10 or 15 U.S. universities by U.S. News and World report since he took office.
President Bienen's time at Northwestern was also marked by sometimes difficult relations with Evanston, with one lawsuit against the city of Evanston reaching the US Supreme Court. While a number of city councilmen were openly hostile to the University, Mayor Lorraine H. Morton always advocated a strong positive relationship with the university.
Bienen also currently teaches a very popular but difficult to get into political science seminar for undergraduates at Northwestern. Early on in his position, a strong undergraduate movement emerged calling on the university to add Asian American studies. The movement took a number of actions including a hunger strike, after facing initial resistance from the Northwestern Administration. Despite being challenged with the demands of balancing funding for existing departments, the university did succeed in putting together the money needed for the new department. Today, Northwestern also has a top ranked African-American Studies Department. In addition, Northwestern's athletic program had many successes since Bienen took office. Northwestern's football program, which historically had not been as strong as other NU teams, has improved markedly. It went to a bowl game five times during Bienen's tenure, including a 1996 trip to the Rose Bowl that was the first in almost 50 years.
Under his leadership, Northwestern embarked on a large fundraising campaign that resulted in the construction of major new buildings on both the Evanston and Chicago campuses. Recent additions to the Evanston campus include: the Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly; the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center; and the McCormick Tribune Center, home to the Medill School of Journalism. Another recent addition is the Arthur and Gladys Pancoe-Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Life Sciences Pavilion. The building was dedicated to memory of the Pancoes' granddaughter Beth Elise Pancoe who died from leukemia while a student at Northwestern. Her grandparents contributed 10 million dollars to the construction, while Evanston Hospital contributed another 14 million dollars, with the balance largely coming from the Federal Government. On its Chicago campus, Northwestern recently opened the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center.
During Bienen's term The International Center for Advanced Internet Research ICAIR was also created at Northwestern in conjunction with IBM and other corporate partners.
Prior to becoming president of Northwestern, Bienen served as dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Foreign Policy at Princeton University. During his early academic career, he was a respected analyst of ethnic conflict and the influence of the military and of violence on development in the third world and especially Africa.
Bienen received a bachelor's degree with honors from Cornell University in 1960 and a master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1961. He received a Ph.D. from Chicago in 1966. He received the University of Chicago Professional Achievement Alumni Award in 2000.
