Richard Charles Levin (born April 7, 1947) is an American
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
and academic administrator. From 1993 to 2013, he was the
22nd President of
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
. From March 2014 to June 2017, he was Chief Executive Officer of
Coursera
Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...
.
Early life and education
Born in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, to
Jewish-American
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...
parents, Levin graduated from
Lowell High School in San Francisco in 1964. At Lowell, he was a member of the
Lowell Forensic Society
Lowell High School is a co-educational, public high school in San Francisco, California.
History
1853-1893
In 1853, Colonel Thomas J. Nevins, San Francisco's first superintendent of schools, broached the idea of a free high school for boys ...
and debated in high school debate tournaments regionally. He graduated from
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
in 1968 with a
B.A. in
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
. He received a
Bachelor of Letters in
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
from
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...
. He earned his
Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1974. His academic specialties include industrial research and development, intellectual property, and productivity in manufacturing.
Career
Levin became an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale in 1974 and was elevated to Associate Professor in 1979. In 1982, he was promoted to Professor of Economics and Management at the
Yale School of Management
The Yale School of Management (also known as Yale SOM) is the graduate business school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Administration (MBA), MBA for Executive ...
. In 1992, he was appointed Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Economics. Before becoming president, he served as chairman of the Economics Department and dean of Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
On February 6, 2004, Levin was appointed to the
Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent panel convened to investigate U.S. intelligence surrounding the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
'
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including ...
and Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...
. He had previously served on a government panel reviewing the
U.S. Postal Service and an independent panel appointed by
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...
to examine the sport's economics. Levin is a director of the
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
American Express
American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation, multinational corporation specialized in payment card industry, payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Man ...
, and Satmetrix.
Although described in
Who's Who
''Who's Who'' (or ''Who is Who'') is the title of a number of reference publications, generally containing concise biographical information on the prominent people of a country. The title has been adopted as an expression meaning a group of not ...
as a Democrat, Levin was one of the first guests of President
George W. Bush in the White House during his first term and the president stayed at Levin's house when he received an honorary degree from Yale in 2001.
Levin had been rumored as a possible replacement for
Larry Summers as Director of the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
National Economic Council until
Gene Sperling
Eugene Benton Sperling (born December 24, 1958) is an American lawyer who was director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He is the only person to ...
was selected instead.
Levin stepped down as president of Yale on June 30, 2013. Shortly before his retirement as President of Yale University, he published a book, ''The Worth of the University'',
a sequel to his previous work, ''The Work of the University''.
He was succeeded by
Peter Salovey
Peter Salovey (; born February 21, 1958) is an American social psychologist and current President of Yale University. He previously served as Yale's Provost, Dean of Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Yale College. Salovey i ...
.
As president of Yale, Levin studied and helped to some extent to guide what he called "the rise of Asia's universities". Yale's role in Asia is briefly set out below. In 2013, Levin agreed to serve on the Advisory Board for the newly created
Schwarzman Scholars
Schwarzman Scholars (), founded by American financier Stephen A. Schwarzman, is an international postgraduate award program for students to study at Tsinghua University. Awards are made to 100–200 applicants per year, worldwide. The program s ...
- fellowships that will take students from many countries for post-graduate study together at
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Projec ...
in Beijing, with the aim of promoting international understanding.
In March 2014, Levin became chief executive officer of
Coursera
Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses ...
.
[ In June 2017, Coursera announced that Levin was being replaced by Jeff Maggioncalda.]
Levin and his wife Jane, also a professor at Yale, reside in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
. They have four children and seven grandchildren.
Yale under Levin
During Levin's tenure, Yale's endowment grew from $3.2 billion to over $20 billion. Yale's admissions standards and academic prestige also recovered from a significant lull in the early 1990s since Levin's appointment. Applications to Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
rose from fewer than 11,000 for the class entering in 1993 to 28,975 for the class entering in 2012, with the most recent classes reporting the highest range of standardized test scores for any college in America. Under Levin, Yale aggressively expanded its efforts to recruit international students and students from previously underrepresented regions of the United States.
Levin helped established a program for undergraduates in Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
and increase participation in international work/study programs. Levin has made a special effort to expand Yale's engagement with China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
and was elected to the board of the National Committee on United States-China Relations
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ...
.
Levin was president during the largest building and renovation program since the 1930s, including all of the university's residential colleges. About 70 percent of the space on campus was partially or comprehensively renovated between 1993 and 2013. Levin approved the creation of Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
's first two new residential colleges since the 1960s with the purpose of increasing the undergraduate population from around 5,400 to over 6,000. The project was delayed due to the financial crisis, but construction was begun in 2013, shortly after Levin stepped down.
Levin vastly expanded the Yale campus with the creation of Yale's West Campus. The campus was created by the purchase of the 136-acre, 17-building Bayer Pharmaceutical campus in Orange, Connecticut, seven miles from Yale's main campus. The purchase was completed for $107 million in 2007 and was described at the time as a "ready-made, state-of-the-art research facility".
Levin's administration worked to improve Yale University's relationship with its local workers. In 2003, Levin negotiated eight-year contracts with the university's unionized workers that provided health care, extensive paid leave, and cumulative raises ranging from 32% to 43%, although he has also fought strongly against new unionization drives by hospital workers, graduate employees, and security guards.
Levin spearheaded the creation of the first liberal arts college in Asia, Yale-NUS College
Yale-NUS College is a liberal arts college in Singapore. Established in 2011 as a collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore, it was the first liberal arts college in Singapore and one of the first few in Asia. ...
, a joint venture between Yale University and the National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in th ...
. Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
initially faced strong criticism that Singapore's various restrictions on press freedom and public protests, as well as its anti-homosexuality policies, would undermine Yale-NUS's liberal arts mission.
Honors
In 1998, as President of Yale, Levin was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
in a ceremony in which the President of Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, Neil Rudenstine
Neil Leon Rudenstine (born January 21, 1935) is an American scholar, educator, and administrator. He served as president of Harvard University from 1991 to 2001.
Early life and education
Rudenstine was born in Danbury, Connecticut, the son of ...
, was also honored. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 2013.
See also
* List of presidents of Yale University
References
External links
Official Biography from the Office of the President of Yale University
Article about Levin's 10th Anniversary As President
Video interview on CXOTALK
Levin's views on China
Richard C. Levin Papers (MS 1995).
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levin, Rick
1947 births
Living people
Presidents of Yale University
Economists from California
Alumni of Merton College, Oxford
American Express people
20th-century American Jews
Lowell High School (San Francisco) alumni
People from San Francisco
Stanford University alumni
Yale University alumni
Yale University faculty
Educators from California
Fellows of Merton College, Oxford
21st-century American economists
Hewlett Foundation
20th-century American economists
Members of the American Philosophical Society
21st-century American Jews