Richard Levis McCormick (born December 26, 1947) is an American historian and academic administrator. He has been the interim president of
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...
since August 2024 and is president emeritus of
Rutgers University
Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
, having served as president from 2002 to 2012.
Early life and education
The son of Richard Patrick McCormick, a Rutgers professor and administrator, and Katheryne C. Levis, a University administrator, Richard Levis McCormick was born in
Piscataway, New Jersey
Piscataway ( ) is a Township (New Jersey), township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of the New York metropolitan area, in the Raritan River, Raritan Valley. As of the 2020 United ...
, McCormick earned his
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
(B.A.) from
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...
in
American studies
American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, History of the United States, history, Society of the United States, society, and Culture of the Unit ...
(1969) and subsequently a
Doctor of Philosophy
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...
(Ph.D.) in History (1976) from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
.
Academic career
Rutgers faculty
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.
UNC-Chapel Hill
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 Histor opened in 2004.
University of Washington Presidency
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, 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.
Rutgers Presidency
McCormick took office as Rutgers president in December 2002 and stepped down in June 2012. His tenure was highlighted by two far-reaching initiatives: the reorganization and strengthening of undergraduate education on the university's largest campus, New Brunswick, and the passage of state legislation to merge nearly all of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into Rutgers.
In 2004, McCormick launched a campuswide discussion 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. Some students and alumni criticized the plan, arguing that it sacrifices Rutgers' unique institutional history and culture. The plan went into effect during the 2007–2008 academic year.
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
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a medical school of Rutgers University. It is one of the two graduate medical schools of Rutgers Health, together with New Jersey Medical School, and is closely aligned with Robert Wood Johnson University ...
and two other units of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. A year later, in January 2012, New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie
Christopher James Christie (born September 6, 1962) is an American politician and former United States Attorney, federal prosecutor who served as the 55th governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party (United States) ...
and a medical-education advisory committee appointed by Christie endorsed the merger proposal but also called for the merger of Rutgers' Camden campus into
Rowan University
Rowan University is a public research university in Glassboro, New Jersey, with a medical campus in Stratford and medical and academic campuses in Camden. Founded in 1923 as Glassboro Normal School on a site donated by 107 residents, the scho ...
. The final bill maintained the Camden campus as part of Rutgers while increasing the number of UMDNJ units being absorbed into Rutgers to include all but University Hospital in Newark and the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford. The legislation, signed by Gov. Christie and approved by the Rutgers governing boards in 2012, took effect July 1, 2013.
McCormick's tenure was noted for his efforts to broaden and deepen the university's connections with New Jersey. He targeted research areas of particular interest to the state (transportation, nutrition, homeland security, climate change), and in 2008 announced Rutgers Against Hunge 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 Da an annual public event highlighting Rutgers academic, research, cultural, and recreational programs.
In 2008, McCormick established the Rutgers Future Scholar 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. Of the first cohort of 183 students in the program, 163 enrolled in college in fall 2013, including 98 at Rutgers.
During McCormick's presidency, the university's annual budget grew from $1.3 billion to $2.1 billion despite declining levels of state funding. He 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, and 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. McCormick suspended the greening project in 2009, citing budgetary problems:
"All of the other projects that we bring to you for your approval — the dining hall on ivingstoncampus, the proteomics building and the Nelson iology Laboratories C-wingall come with revenue streams…. There's no revenue stream for the greening of College Avenue unless you charge students for walking past bushes and trees…. I regret this, but we have no other choice," McCormick said.
In 2012 he announced multifaceted project that, contingent on the success of its proposed funding plan, would add an honors college, an academic classroom building, a residence hall, and a dining hall to the College Avenue Campus.
In 2010, McCormick launched a $1 billion university fundraising campaign titled Our Rutgers, Our Future: A Campaign for Excellence. Two-thirds of the campaign goal was raised during McCormick's tenure, the largest donation being a $27 million gift for endowed professorships.
On May 31, 2011, McCormick submitted his formal resignation to the university Board of Governors, which took effect June 30, 2012 McCormick's successor effective September 1, 2012, Robert L. Barchi, was announced and appointed on April 11, 2012.
McCormick has returned to teaching history in Rutgers' Graduate School of Education. He wrote a book title ''Raised at Rutgers: A President's Story,'' which was published by the Rutgers University Press in October 2014.
Stony Brook Presidency
On July 16, 2024, the Office of President of Stony Brook University issued an announcement naming McCormick as interim President effective August 1.
Personal life
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 retired professor of history at Rutgers. He had been married to Lebsock since 1984."U. President's wife files for divorce". Catherine Galioto. Nov 5, 2005. Daily Targum. https://web.archive.org/web/20110605050507/http://www.dailytargum.com/2.4985/u-president-s-wife-files-for-divorce-1.1507815
Published works
* ''From Realignment to Reform: Political Change in New York State, 1893–1910.'' (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981). .
* ''Progressivism.'' with Arthur S. Link. (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1983). .
* ''Political Parties and the Modern State.'' (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1984). .
* ''The Party Period and Public Policy: American Politics from the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era.'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). .
* ''Public Life in Industrial America, 1877-1917'' (American Historical Association, 1997). .
* ''Raised at Rutgers: A President's Story'' (Rutgers University Press, 2014). .