Robert Lee Hess (December 18, 1932 – January 12, 1992) was an American scholar of

African history The history of Africa begins with the emergence of hominids, archaic humans and — around 300–250,000 years ago—anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens''), in East Africa, and continues unbroken into the present as a patchwork of dive ...

, and the sixth President of

Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...

Personal life

Hess was born in

Asbury Park, New Jersey Asbury Park () is a beachfront city located on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 15,188

, to Henry and Ada (Davis) Hess. He attended Yale University, where he earned his B.A. (1954, magna cum laude), M.A. (1955), and Ph.D. (1960) degrees, studying

. He was a resident of Brooklyn. Hess was married to Frances H. Aaron in 1960, and had four children. Hess died January 12, 1992, in Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York of lymphoma.

Academic career

He taught from 1958 to 1961 at

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, from 1961–62 and 1963–64 at Mount Holyoke College, from 1962–63 at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...

, and from 1961 to 1964 at Northwestern University. From 1966 to 1979, Hess taught history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1966, he was appointed an associate professor and promoted to full professor in 1971. At Chicago he served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and, beginning in 1972 Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Hess was the sixth president of

Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...

, from 1979 until 1992. In a 1988 survey of thousands of academic deans, the college ranked 5th in the United States in providing students with a strong general education. Brooklyn College was the only college in the top five in the survey that was a public institution. While Brooklyn College was referred to as “the poor man’s Harvard,” Hess quipped: “I like to think of Harvard as the rich man’s Brooklyn College.” The Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program was established by Brooklyn College, and is supported by the Robert L. Hess Fund. I Scholars in residence have included

Vartan Gregorian Vartan Gregorian; fa, وارتان گرگوریان (April 8, 1934 – April 15, 2021) was an Armenian-American academic, educator, and historian. He served as president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1997 to 2021. An Armenian born in Ira ...

, James S. Langer, Daniel Miller, Robin D. G. Kelley,

Agnieszka Holland Agnieszka Holland (born 28 November 1948) is a Polish film and television director and screenwriter, best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. She began her career as assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda ...

Marc Shell Marc Shell, born 1947 in Montreal, is a Canadian literary critic. He has interests in nationalism and kinship. He serves as Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of English at Harvard University. Over 5 of his publications have ...

, Sean Wilentz,

Thomas Frank Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

, and Edwidge Danticat. Hess wrote several books and many articles on 19th century Africa, the Horn of Africa, and colonialism. Among them were ''Ethiopia: the Modernization of Autocracy'' (considered by '' Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries'' to be one of the ten best books on Africa), ''A bibliography of the primary sources for nineteenth century tropical African history, as recorded by explorers, missionaries, traders, travelers, administrators, military men, and adventurers'' (1965), ''Italian Colonialism in Somalia'' (1966), ''Patrick Gilkes, the Dying Lion: Feudalism and Modernization in Ethiopia'' (1977), and ''Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa'' (1978).

Honors

He received both a Fulbright Fellowship (1956–1958 at the University of Rome in Italy) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1968–69). He received honorary degrees from: .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hess, Robert 1932 births People from Asbury Park, New Jersey 1992 deaths Yale College alumni Presidents of Brooklyn College 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers Mount Holyoke College faculty Boston University faculty Carnegie Mellon University faculty Northwestern University faculty American university and college faculty deans University of Illinois Chicago faculty Historians of Africa Writers from Brooklyn Historians from New York (state) Historians from New Jersey Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Fulbright alumni