| Richard Levis McCormick | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 26, 1947 New Brunswick, New Jersey |
| Education | Piscataway High School Amherst College (1969) Yale University (1976) |
| Title | President of Rutgers University |
| Spouse | Joan Barry McCormick |
| Parents | Richard Patrick McCormick Katheryne C. Levis |
| Signature | |
Richard Levis McCormick (born December 26, 1947) is a historian, professor and university administrator currently serving as the nineteenth president of Rutgers University.
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The son of the late Richard Patrick McCormick, a Rutgers professor and administrator, and Katheryne C. Levis, a University administrator, Richard Levis McCormick was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
After graduating from Piscataway High School in Piscataway, New Jersey, McCormick earned his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Amherst College in American studies (1969) and subsequently a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in History (1976) from Yale University.
McCormick served on the Rutgers University History faculty from 1976 to 1992, including three years as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He team-taught an American history course with his father, Richard P. McCormick. In 1985, he held a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship as well as a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship.
McCormick served as vice chancellor and provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1992 to 1995. His tenure was marked by the settling of a controversy over a proposed Black Cultural Center. More than a dozen students were arrested in a sit-in protest demanding construction of the facility, which opponents viewed as an attempt to create a separatist facility. McCormick won campuswide support by emphasizing the academic aspects of the center and helped initiate a fundraising campaign to build it. The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History [1] opened in 2004.
McCormick served as President of the University of Washington from 1995 to 2002. Although hampered by declining state funding, McCormick promoted undergraduate research and helped boost UW’s six-year graduation rate from 67 percent in 1995 to 72 percent in 2000. He launched an annual faculty bus tour to encourage the university to adopt a statewide perspective. Research funding and private giving reached record levels in McCormick’s tenure, but he was unable to prevent passage of a 1998 statewide initiative, I-200 Initiative 200, ending the university’s affirmative action programs.
When McCormick announced his intent to take a position at Rutgers, he became the first UW president in 50 years to leave for another university. McCormick's departure from the University of Washington was prompted, in part, by pressure from the UW Board of Regents regarding an affair McCormick had with a coworker during his presidency.[1][2]
McCormick took office as Rutgers president in December 2002. His most significant initiative has been the strengthening of the university's responsibility to undergraduate students, insisting that they receive the full benefits of the university's mission as a research university. In 2006, the university's Board of Governors approved his plan to reorganize the undergraduate colleges on the New Brunswick campus into a School of Arts and Sciences and School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, eliminating contradictory admissions and curriculum standards among these undergraduate colleges and emphasizing faculty-student interaction. Students and alumni criticized this plan, arguing that it sacrifices Rutgers' unique institutional history and culture. This plan went into effect during the 2007-2008 academic year..
His tenure has been noted for his efforts to broaden and deepen the university's connections with New Jersey. He has targeted research areas of particular interest to the state (transportation, nutrition, homeland security, climate change), and in 2008 announced Rutgers Against Hunger[2], an initiative to stock food banks in the state, provide consumer education on nutrition, and help community organizations fight hunger. In 2009 he launched Rutgers Day[3], an annual public event highlighting Rutgers academic, research, cultural, and recreational programs.
In 2008, McCormick established the Rutgers Future Scholars[4] Program in conjunction with a series of initiatives designed to increase the diversity of the university population. Each year, a new cohort of fifty rising eighth-grade students from each of the university’s host cities of Newark, Camden, New Brunswick, and Piscataway begins a five-year process of regular visits to campus, college preparation activities, and mentoring, with the guarantee of free tuition at Rutgers for all those who earn admission after high school.
Since McCormick took office, the university's annual budget has grown from $1.3 billion to $2.0 billion despite declining levels of state funding. He has made new investments in Rutgers’ campuses, responding to student demand for additional housing, classroom repairs, and renovated or expanded student-life facilities. The Rutgers School of Law–Camden opened a new facility in 2008, the Rutgers Business School—Newark and New Brunswick moved into a new home at One Washington Park in Newark in 2009.
In 2007 McCormick announced plans for redevelopment of the Livingston Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey, focused on professional education; a 2008 anonymous gift of $13 million, the second largest private gift in Rutgers’ history, has been earmarked for a new business school facility on that campus. In 2006 he held an international design competition to “green” the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Some detractors said the designs, including those of the winning firm, were too modern for the historic campus, but others praised the proposed use of open space and planned transportation improvements. Citing budget problems, McCormick suspended the greening project indefinitely in 2009.
In 2010, McCormick launched a $1 billion university fundraising campaign entitled Our Rutgers, Our Future: A Campaign for Excellence. Now more than halfway to its goal, the campaign's largest donation to date is $27 million for endowed professorships.
In January 2011, McCormick praised the recommendations of the New Jersey Higher Education Task Force, which proposed merging Rutgers with the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, a unit of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and a medical-education advisory committee that Christie appointed have also endorsed the merger proposal.
On May 29,2011, the Star Ledger reported McCormick would step down as president effective at the end of the 2011-12 school year. On May 31, 2011 submitted his formal resignation to the Board of Governors. Following a one year sabbatical, he intends to return to teach history and graduate education. He will be making $335,000 a year as the highest-paid professor at Rutgers, which is mandated by his contract.[5] As professor McCormick stated he hopes to spend more time with his wife and daughter.[6]
He is married to Joan Barry McCormick, a 1988 Rutgers alumna and professional fundraiser whose undergraduate degree is in journalism, with a master’s degree in public administration from Kean University. McCormick has three children, Betsy, Michael, and Katie. Two of them are from his previous marriage to Suzanne Lebsock, a professor of history at Rutgers.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Francis L. Lawrence |
President of Rutgers University 2002–present |
Succeeded by incumbent |
| Preceded by William P. Gerberding |
President of the University of Washington 1995–2002 |
Succeeded by Lee L. Huntsman, acting |
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