Rick Levin

Richard Charles Levin (born April 7, 1947) is a professor and American economist who has served as president of Yale University since 1993. He is currently the longest-tenured Ivy League president. Levin had been rumored as a possible replacement for Larry Summers as Director of the White House National Economic Council^[1] until Gene Sperling was selected instead.

Biography

Born in San Francisco, California,^[2] to Jewish-American parents, Levin graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco in 1964. At Lowell, he was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society and debated in high school debate tournaments regionally. He graduated from Stanford University in 1968 with a B.A. in history. He received a Bachelor of Letters in politics and philosophy from Merton College, Oxford.^[3] He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1974. His academic specialties include industrial research and development, intellectual property, and productivity in manufacturing.

Levin became an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale in 1974 and was elevated to Associate Professor in 1979. In 1982, he was promoted to Professor of Economics and Management at the Yale School of Management. In 1992, he was appointed Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Economics. Before becoming president, he served as chairman of the Economics Department and dean of Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

On February 6, 2004, Levin was appointed to the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent panel convened to investigate U.S. intelligence surrounding the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He had previously served on a government panel reviewing the U.S. Postal Service and an independent panel appointed by Major League Baseball to examine the sport's economics. Levin is a director of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, American Express, and Satmetrix.

Although described in Who's Who as a Democrat, Levin was one of the first guests of President George W. Bush in the White House during his first term and the president stayed at Levin's house when he received an honorary degree from Yale in 2001.

Levin and his wife, Jane, a professor at Yale, reside in New Haven, Connecticut. They have four children and three grandchildren.

Yale under Levin

Since Levin's appointment, all of his provosts have gone on to head other universities: Judith Rodin (appointed by his predecessor) as president of the University of Pennsylvania, becoming the first female president of an Ivy League university, Alison Richard as vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Susan Hockfield as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Andrew D. Hamilton as vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. Other Levin appointees who have left to head other universities include Richard Brodhead, a former dean of Yale College, who left to become the president of Duke University, and Rebecca Chopp, a former dean of the Yale Divinity School, who left Yale to take the helm of Colgate University and is currently president of Swarthmore College.

Yale under Levin has seen an expansion of the University's endowment and an ambitious renovation plan. Yale's admissions standards and academic prestige have recovered from a significant lull in the early 1990s since Levin's appointment. Applications to Yale College rose from fewer than 11,000 for the class entering in 1993 to over 26,000 for the class entering in 2009,^[4] with the most recent classes reporting the highest range of standardized test scores for any college in America.^[5] Under Levin's leadership, Yale has established a program for undergraduates in Beijing and has experienced an increase in international work/study programs. Levin has made it a point to expand Yale's engagement with China and was elected to the board of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. Closer to home, Levin's administration in 2003 negotiated eight-year contracts with the university's unionized workers that provided free health care, extensive paid leave, and cumulative raises ranging from 32% to 43%, although he has also fought strongly against new unionization drives by hospital workers, graduate employees, and security guards.

Notes

References

• Kelley, Brooks Mather (1999). Yale: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07843-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=B2aDRhohtx8C. 

External links

• Official Biography from the Office of the President of Yale University
• Article about Levin's 10th Anniversary As President
• Levin's views on China