Long Biography
Richard C. Levin
Richard C. Levin is the longest—serving Ivy League president and is recognized as one of the leaders of American higher education. Prior to assuming Yale's presidency in 1993, he served as Chair of Yale’s Economics Department and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He has been a member of Yale’s faculty since 1974.
For the past 17 years, President Levin has made it a priority to improve things at home—through campus restoration and working in partnership with Yale’s host city to bring about a significant revitalization of New Haven–while expanding Yale internationally. At the same time, he has dramatically increased access to Yale through generous financial aid for all students and the digitalization of Yale’s intellectual treasures. Additionally, he has made it a top priority to catapult Yale in the sciences. His demonstrated leadership on the environment and national security issues affecting higher education, such as visa reform and export controls, has helped bring needed attention to and action on these issues in Washington and abroad.
The internationalization of Yale has been one of President Levin’s priorities. During his tenure, he launched the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization headed by former President of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo; created the Yale World Fellows Program that is building and training a world-wide network of emerging leaders; and introduced a financial aid policy for international Yale College students that provides the same generous financial aid as that awarded to U.S. students. In addition, Yale now provides every undergraduate student the opportunity to go abroad for study, research or internships at least once during his or her four years of college. For students on financial aid, additional funding has been granted to make these overseas opportunities possible.
President Levin has focused considerable attention on China as the University’s internationalization efforts have developed. He has traveled to China 15 times in the last ten years, including a trip in May 2007, where, at the invitation of China’s President Hu Jintao, he led a group of 100 Yale students and faculty members on an historic visit. In 2001, he chose to give his Tercentennial Address on “The Global University” on the campus of Peking University, and he met with China’s then–President Jiang Zemin in Beijing. In subsequent conversations with senior governmental officials, Yale was selected to sponsor an Advanced University Leadership Program for the presidents and vice presidents of China's leading universities. That program has been held each summer since 2004. In addition, Yale was chosen to sponsor an executive education program for the most senior cohort of Chinese governmental officials to study outside the country; that program was devoted to exploring how the Rule of Law could be further extended in China and was held on Yale's campus in June 2005, 2006 and 2007. Most recently, the inaugural Yale Chinese Women's Leadership Development Program successfully took place at Yale.
President Levin’s international agenda has also included visits to Australia, Denmark, France, Greece, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and the UK as part of Yale’s expansion of research and educational ties around the world. Among other new partnerships, those visits have led to the creation of leadership programs for senior governmental officials from Japan and India. The Yale India Initiative has grown from the University's interest in strengthening South Asian academic programs on campus.
Under President Levin’s leadership, Yale completed in 1997 a $1.7 billion fundraising campaign, and has invested $4 billion in a campus renovation and building program. Yale is now engaged in another major fundraising campaign with a goal of $3.5 billion. To ensure Yale's preeminence in research and discovery, President Levin has committed $1 billion to renovating and expanding Yale’s medical and science facilities, including the construction of five new science and engineering buildings. Yale is home to one of the largest new biomedical research facilities opened in the United States in the last several years. In 2007, President Levin announced the University purchase of the Bayer HealthCare complex, a property that features nearly 500,000 square feet of state–of–the–art research space, as well as office buildings, warehouses and other facilities. As a result of the new laboratory facilities that were part of the purchase, the University has been able to launch research programs that otherwise would not have been able to be undertaken for a decade or more.
President Levin is recognized as an advocate and leader of the emerging role of higher education in responding to the challenge of sustainable development locally and globally. He established an Office of Sustainability in 2005, and during that year endorsed an aggressive greenhouse gas reduction target and strategy for the University. In 2007–2008, President Levin convened the leadership of Yale's peer institutions nationally and internationally, challenging each of these universities to respond to the pressing issue of climate change.
He has developed an effective partnership with the City of New Haven to expand commercial activity near the campus and increase the number of new local companies based on Yale research. During President Levin's term, more than $2 billion has been invested in Yale spin–off companies, and Yale has directly contributed more than $150 million to improvements in the City of New Haven. He initiated the Yale HomeBuyer Program in 1993, and to date more than 900 Yale employees have purchased homes in selected areas of New Haven with financial support from the University. In addition, as part of President Levin’s commitment to community development, Yale also supports numerous programs that provide New Haven with the expertise and services of faculty and students. Most recently, Yale joined with the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven and the City to announce New Haven Promise, a visionary scholarship and support program for city residents who graduate from a public school in the city and attend college in Connecticut.
Prior to assuming the presidency, President Levin’s chief research interest was industrial organization, including studies in the deregulation of railroads, the patent system, and antitrust. In the years before his appointment, he focused his research activity on the competitiveness of American manufacturing industries. He coordinated an international team of economists, engineers, and science-policy specialists evaluating proposed organizational reforms in the former Soviet Union that would affect science as well as industrial research and development.
Nearly two years ago, President Levin was appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST); the members – from outside the Federal government – provide advice on matters of science and technology policy. He is a director of American Express, ClimateWorks, and the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations, and he is a trustee of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States. He served on Presidential Commissions reviewing the U.S. Postal Service and the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence operations. As a member of the board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy (STEP) at the National Academy of Science, President Levin co-chaired a committee that examined the effects of intellectual property rights policies on economic and scientific progress and made recommendations for reform of the patent system that are currently under active consideration by the U.S. Congress. In addition, he served on the Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics.
A native of San Francisco, President Levin received his bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University in 1968 and studied politics and philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned a Bachelor of Letters degree in 1970. In 1974 he received his Ph.D. in economics from Yale and was named to the Yale faculty. He holds honorary degrees awarded by Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Peking, Tokyo, and Waseda Universities and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Richard Levin and his wife, Jane, have been New Haven residents for forty years. They have four children and seven grandchildren.
