Leonard Lief (June 14, 1924 – July 30, 2007) was the founding president of Herbert H. Lehman College a

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

institution that is one of the senior colleges of the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

. Lief was the college's president for more than two decades, from 1968 to 1990, solidifying it as a college with a liberal arts focus on a tree-lined campus. Leonard Lief was educated at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

on the

G. I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

, obtained a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and a doctorate at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

in 1953. He became a member of the

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

faculty in 1955, and moved to the Bronx campus in 1963 He later became the provost of the Bronx campus, before it was made into Herbert H. Lehman College. Lief, an

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

scholar, died after a long bout with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

at the age of 83,"Leonard Lief, 83, an Educator and a Lehman College President," The New York Times, Aug. 3, 2007, https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E3DA1630F930A3575BC0A9619C8B63 on July 30, 2007, at his Willow Towers home in

New Rochelle New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state of ...

, New York. The Lehman College's campus library is named Leonard Lief Library in his honor. His successor as president of Lehman College was Ricardo R. Fernández. Lief wrote three English textbooks, "American Colloquy" (1963), "Story and Critic" (1963), and "Modern Age: Literature" (1967). Lehmanlibjeh

References

1924 births 1997 deaths People from New Rochelle, New York Lehman College Presidents of campuses of City University of New York Neurological disease deaths in New York (state) Deaths from Parkinson's disease Lehman College people Hunter College faculty Syracuse University alumni Columbia University alumni New York University alumni 20th-century American academics {{US-academic-administrator-1920s-stub