Pace University Appoints Stephen J. Friedman as President
Feb. 11, 2009, NEW YORK — The trustees of Pace University have appointed Stephen J. Friedman as President of the University. Friedman has been Acting President of the private, professionally-oriented institution since June 4, 2007.
A well-known American lawyer, Friedman was Dean of Pace University Law School for three years before becoming President. During that time the law faculty engaged in significant curricular reform and the school showed marked improvements in admissions, bar passage results, and job placements in law firms and judicial clerkships.
Previously Friedman had moved between public service and private practice, clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., serving as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for capital markets policy and as a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission; as a lawyer in the private sector he was a senior partner and Co-Chair of the Corporate Department of Debevoise & Plimpton as well as executive vice president and general counsel of both The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and The E.F. Hutton Group.
The appointment makes Pace one of three large, private universities in the New York Metropolitan area headed by former Supreme Court clerks. The others are Columbia (Lee Bollinger) and NYU (John Sexton).
Friedman is a magna cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University.
Admissions successes. Since taking charge of Pace, he has helped the University attract the largest number of new, full-time undergraduate and graduate students in 10 years last fall, and draw a record number of inquiries for next fall. The University has stabilized its finances and is focusing course offerings on traditional strengths in professional education built on a foundation of liberal arts and sciences. It also is creating interdepartmental and interschool centers of excellence.
The appointment was announced by Aniello A Bianco ‘61, Chair of the board. He said: “Steve Friedman's business acumen, his outstanding background of service to a number of institutions, and the impressive record of his first 18 months of stewardship led the Board as well as other constituencies of the University to embrace this appointment. He is bringing a clear vision to the next century of this 103-year-old institution. He understands the New York metropolitan area's continuing need for professionals who know how to think about what they are doing, and he is intensifying Pace's tradition of producing them."
Ambition and talent. Said Friedman: “The ambition and talent of Pace students continue to stir me deeply. I intend to keep building on Pace's areas of special strength to keep it a leader in the New York Metropolitan area, a powerful source of well-educated students for our economy, and above all a university that lifts students' lives and prospects to new levels.”
Friedman serves as a trustee or director of New York Downtown Hospital, the Alliance for Downtown New York, the Practising Law Institute, and NYSE Regulation, Inc., and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former director of American Ballet Theatre, the Asian University for Women (AUW) Support Foundation, the National Association of Securities Dealers, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Refco, Inc. and Conrail.
For 103 years Pace University has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality professional education resting on a base of liberal learning amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling more than 13,000 students in bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Law School, Lienhard School of Nursing, School of Education, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. www.pace.edu
