Michael I. Sovern

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Michael Ira Sovern (born December 1, 1931) was the 17th president of Columbia University. He is currently the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Sovern was born in the Bronx, three blocks from Yankee Stadium to a dress salesman father and bookkeeper mother. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1949, summa cum laude from Columbia College in 1953, and first in his class at Columbia Law School in 1955. Immediately after graduation, he joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota Law School.

He returned to Columbia as a visiting professor in 1957 and then joined the permanent faculty, became the youngest full professor at Columbia in 1960. He is a scholar of Labor Law and an expert in employment discrimination. He has mediated for New York City in transit worker contract negotiations, and fireman and police strikes. During the 1968 strife on campus, he served as chairman of the faculty executive committee which was credited with easing tensions.

Sovern became Dean of the Law School in 1970 and was named Provost in 1978. He became President in 1980. While President, he tripled Columbia's endowment, recruited many prominent faculty and presided over the opening of the University's main undergraduate division, Columbia College, to women students. Perhaps most importantly, he greatly improved the university's financial health by balancing its budget and introducing strict budgetary controls. He stepped down as president in 1993 and returned to the faculty.

He has received honorary doctorates from Tel Aviv University, the University of Southern California and Columbia. A professorship in his name has been endowed at Columbia Law School (currently held by Michael C. Dorf), and the American Academy in Rome has established a fellowship in his honor.

Outside of law and academia, Sovern is Chairman of Sotheby's Holdings, Inc. and sits on numerous boards of directors, including Comcast Communications. Mr. Sovern has served on the board of trustees of the Asian Cultural Council, formerly the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund, based in New York and in Asia. He also served as a board member and juror for the Pulitzer Prizes.

Sovern married three times: To the former Eleanor Leen in 1963, to the former Joan Rosenthal Wit in 1974, and finally to Dr. Patricia Margaret Walsh in 1995. His first marriage ended in divorce, and the second when Joan Sovern died of cancer in 1993. Sovern is the father of two daughters and two sons.