Spring 2011 Issue - Lehman College

1968: Lehman College Is Established
On July 1, 1968, Herbert H. Lehman College came into existence,
the first—and still the only—senior CUNY college in the Bronx.
Dr. Leonard A. Lief, a Hunter faculty member since 1955, became
Lehman’s first president, a position he would hold for twenty-two
years.
It was up to each faculty member to decide if he or she wanted
to rejoin Hunter College on 68th Street or be part of Lehman. Although
almost half decided to move downtown, some departments
like History voted unanimously to stay in the Bronx. “We liked it
here,” remembers Professor Emeritus Jacob Judd, who had taught
at Hunter-in-the-Bronx since 1964 and later was chair of the
Department. “We were a community; we were a small group and
very close. We ate together. There was a lot of camaraderie.”
Speaking at the ceremony
marking the joint dedication of
the College and the inauguration
of President Lief, U.S.
District Judge Edward Weinfeld
talked about the three great
themes—reason, action, and
freedom—that he saw in the life
of Governor Lehman (shown at
right), who had been his close
friend. He could not conceive of
a more fitting memorial, he said,
“than a college dedicated to
the advancement of reason, the
ordering of action, the preservation of freedom.”
“I wanted a change of scene from the city.
I had gone to Hunter College High School,
and when we got into Hunter College and
we had a choice of staying in Manhattan
or going up to the Bronx, I wanted to go to
the Bronx. They had a campus, and it was
beautiful. There were a lot of green fields
and tennis courts. It was just lovely. Growing
up in Manhattan, you just didn’t have a lot
of green space, except Central Park, of course. One of the things I
recall about the students in those days is that they were committed.
All of us had jobs besides going to school. Everyone had a part-time
job. I met my husband, Ronald, at Hunter-in-the-Bronx. We were the
same year—Class of 1956.
We met in a geography class
in Gillet Hall, I believe. I was a
history major; he was an eco-
nomics/geography major.””
— Natalie Schneider Olsen,
Hunter ‘56
(shown with her husband
Ronald, also Class of ‘56)
“I had a cousin who went to Hunter uptown, and
he was very satisfied with the experience. I used
to drive from my home in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Students were really friendly, and the campus was
just so green. Growing up in New York City, there
wasn’t a lot of green space. In the spring and
summer, there were a lot of classes on the lawn,
when the weather afforded it.
Some of the teachers were just fantastic. One professor had such an
impact on me that later on, when I wrote my dissertation for my Ph.D.
in sociology at Columbia, I dedicated it to him. His name was Hubert
O’Gorman—he was a fantastic, fantastic professor of sociology. I took
four classes with him. I remember one time, I think it was in 1966,
students were out on strike for something. The administration wanted
to introduce some fee—not tuition—but something. So people were
outside picketing and carrying signs, and then when it was time for
O’Gorman’s class, people started leaving the picket line just so they
could attend his class. That’s how good a teacher he was. He was so
entertaining.”
— Howard Spivak, Hunter ‘67
Since 1968 the campus has been reshaped with new buildings,
like Lehman Center for the Performing Arts—which has made the
College a premiere cultural destination. In 1990, Dr. Ricardo R.
Fernández became the College’s second President, and under his
leadership Lehman has added an array of new majors, expanded
its graduate programs, and reached out extensively to the community
to form partnerships, especially in education. A strategic plan
for 2010-2020 outlines bold steps to keep that progress on track.
At the same time, Lehman continues to honor its past, as it has
for more than thirty years, in events like the annual Arthur Sweeny,
Jr. Lecture. Dr. Sweeny, a beloved chemistry professor, originally
taught at Hunter-in-the-Bronx but stayed on to establish Lehman’s
first pre-medical office before retiring in 1974. During his fortyfour
years of teaching and research, he guided the education and
careers of legions of students—many
of them women—who went on to
become teachers, doctors, and
chemists and exert an immense
impact on their field.
Those themes of dedication to
higher education, community
service, and the art of teaching
have been—and remain—
a consistent part of this
eighty-year odyssey.
26 Lehman Today/Spring 2011