Limit search to available items
Book Cover
E-book
Author Sovern, Michael I., author.

Title An improbable life : my sixty years at Columbia and other adventures / Michael I. Sovern
Published New York : Columbia University Press, 2014

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xviii, 288 pages) : illustrations
Contents Table of Contents; List of Illustrations; Foreword by Walter F. Mondale; Foreword by Lee C. Bollinger; 1. A Shared Story; 2. Riot; 3. Rebuilding; 4. Aftermath; 5. Condoms and Wrinkle Cream; 6. Becoming a Dean; 7. Litigating: Tuskegee and the Supreme Court; 8. Provost; 9. Building an Administration; 10. Beginnings; 12. Columbia College; 12. Columbia Law School; 13. Minnesota; 14. Coming Home; 15. Publishing and Moonlighting; 16. Climbing Out of a Hole; 17. Ceremonies; 18. Doing the Right Thing: Coeducation, Charter Revision, and Columbia Football; 19. The Pulitzer Prizes
20. Reagan Versus Mondale21. Disappointing My Peers: Divestiture and Earmarks; 22. City Corruption and Columbia Unrest; 23. A Sabbatical Leave and a Return to Celebrations; 24. Remembering Malcolm X and Working with the Community; 25. International Guests, Anniversaries, Dedications, and a New Campaign; 26. Closing a School; 27. Salman Rushdie at Risk; 28. Hail and Farewell; 29. The Last Year; 30. A Backward Glance; 31. There Is Life After a Presidency; 32. Shubert-a Great Gig; 33. Almost a Justice; 34. Sotheby's; 35. America's Challenge; 36. What Next?; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index
Summary Columbia University began the second half of the twentieth century in decline, bottoming out with the student riots of 1968. Yet by the close of the century, the institution had regained its stature as one of the greatest universities in the world. According to the New York Times,?If any one person is responsible for Columbia's recovery, it is surely Michael Sovern." In this memoir, Sovern, who served as the university's president from 1980 to 1993, recounts his sixty-year involvement with the institution, as well as his experiences growing up poor in the South Bronx and attending
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Sovern, Michael I.
SUBJECT Sovern, Michael I. fast
Subject Columbia University -- Presidents -- Biography
Columbia University -- History
SUBJECT Columbia University fast
Subject College presidents -- United States -- Biography
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Educators.
EDUCATION -- Higher.
HISTORY -- United States -- 20th Century.
College presidents
Presidents
United States
Genre/Form Biographies
History
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780231537056
0231537050