Leadership Letter
fall of 2007—stronger academically and financially, more resilient and agile, and increasingly better known throughout the country. Those changes have been accomplished by an exceptionally talented and committed team of administrative, decanal, and faculty leaders. I have been privileged to work with and rely on the members of the Operations Committee, many of whom have now worked together as a team for many years. Thanks to them, Pace University is today more than the sum of its parts. I have been constantly impressed by the professionalism, good judgment, good spirits, and hard work they have brought to creating a bright future for Pace. It has been a joy for me to work side-by-side with them. I wish that this report afforded me the time and space to detail their individual contributions to Pace University, which have been legion. No organization, whether a business or a nonprofit, stays the same for very long. A university must be constantly refreshed, reshaped, and recreated. Although the change is not always visible because it takes place in small increments, the University is in constant motion, every day getting better or slipping behind, as new faculty, students, and administrators arrive, others leave, new ideas supplant conventional wisdom, and technology works increasingly radical changes on what we teach and how we teach. This fluidity poses special challenges for a Board of Trustees, requiring it to be both very careful and courageous. During my tenure as President, I have been the deeply grateful beneficiary of a group of Trustees who have brought extensive business, academic, board, and alumni experience to bear on the many challenges we have faced and surmounted. Our Trustees have been careful, courageous, fully committed to a great future for Pace University, and generous in their support of that future. With careful examination of the risks involved in each major step, the Trustees have made the hard decisions required to move forward: the hiring of new faculty every year in the last 10, including the 2008 and 2009 years of the Great Recession; the sales of Briarcliff, the Graduate Center at Martine Avenue, and the dormitory at 106 Fulton Street in New York City; the incurrence of an additional $112 million of new debt to fund the major portion of the Pleasantville Master Site Plan (albeit at very favorable rates); after we assembled an initial $100 million construction fund, the commitment to the $190 million New York City Master Plan, along with the decision not to fund it with additional long-term debt; the approval of budgets to staff and teach
“ Pace University is a very different place than it was in the fall of 2007— stronger academically and financially, more resilient and agile, and increasingly better known throughout the country. Those changes have been accomplished by an exceptionally talented and committed team of administrative, decanal, and faculty leaders.”
new and expanded programs; and many other actions. The Trustees had the courage of their convictions and the steps taken thus far have been proof points for the correctness of their convictions. I am grateful for their confidence in the future of Pace and in the administration of the University that those decisions reflect. Over the past 10 years, a number of long-serving Trustees have retired from the Board and those remaining have been joined by a group of experienced and talented new Trustees, both alumni and non-alumni who identify with our mission. Our Trustees have been wonderfully generous with their time, their deep interest in creating an ever-better Pace University, their commitment, and their financial support. A few months ago, they were joined on the Board by Liliane Haub, whose family recently committed to make the largest gift in the history of Pace University, all in support of the Law School’s Environmental Law program. That gift caps a three-generation partnership between the Haub family and the Law School in pursuit of environmental sustainability, and the Law School now proudly bears the name of
Pace University • Leadership – Winter 2017
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