Neil Rudenstine

Rudenstine was a staunch advocate of universities viewing race and ethnicity as one of many factors in the admissions process and advocated extensively on the importance of a diverse student body. In April 2000 during the thirtieth-anniversary celebration of the Department of Afro-American Studies, he stated, “Harvard will continue to take ethnicity and race into account, along with many other factors, as it admits students”.Rudenstine also was committed to providing increased financial aid and scholarships to students from a range of financial circumstances. Student scholarships and fellowship grants increased from $59 million in 1991 to $132 million in 2000, a year before his departure from the presidency.

He was known as a very mild-mannered president, supporting the arts and humanities and generally avoiding internal controversy, usually taking a hands-off approach to leading the university. He is also known for his initially hostile response to the Harvard Living Wage Campaign of 1998–2001, an initiative that drew the active support of thousands of students, faculty, and alumni, including the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Some of Rudenstine’s frustration stemmed from a sit-in organized by students and alumni, which occupied administrative offices, including his, for more than two weeks, slowing University business. Listening to the community, Rudenstine formed an Ad Hoc Committee on Employment Policies at Harvard, which surveyed employment practices and delivered a report to the President. The committee cited the university’s strong record as an employer and recommended additional measures to build on the University’s offerings for employees, which Rudenstine endorsed and advocated for during the remainder of his tenure.

Rudenstine is an honorary Fellow of New College, Oxford and Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, and Provost Emeritus at Princeton University. In 1998, as president of Harvard University, Rudenstine was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford, in a ceremony in which the president of Yale University, Richard Levin, was also honored.

In November 1994, the University announced that Rudenstine would take a medical leave of absence on the advice of doctors, who noted that he was suffering from severe fatigue and exhaustion. At the time, Rudenstine described the decision to take a leave as one he made with “the greatest reluctance.” He took a three-month leave of absence, during which provost Albert Carnesale served as acting president. Rudenstine returned from his absence in February 1994 and went on to serve seven more years until stepping down in 2001.

Rudenstine served as president of Harvard from 1991 to 2001. He gained a reputation as an effective fundraiser, overseeing a period of highly successful growth in Harvard's endowment.

Rudenstine led Harvard's first university-wide fundraising campaign in modern history, raising more than $2.6 billion, surpassing the goal of $2.1 billion. With the funds, Harvard increased student financial aid, supported new educational and research programs, and allowed for the creation of new buildings, as well as renovation of existing spaces. Rudenstine's tenure at Harvard also oversaw an endowment growth of $4.7 billion in 1991 to more than $15 billion.

Rudenstine was a strong supporter of university-based research during his presidency as he helped to institute the Science Coalition in the mid-1990s and oversaw the university's federally sponsored research support grow to about $320 million in 2000 from $200 million in 1991.

After his time at Princeton, he served as executive vice-president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation from 1988 to 1991.

From 1968 to 1988, Rudenstine was a faculty member and senior administrator at Princeton. A scholar of Renaissance literature, he was an associate professor and then full professor of English. He also held a series of administrative posts at Princeton:

Most of Rudenstine's career has been dedicated to educational administration. He taught at Harvard from 1964 to 1968 as an instructor and then assistant professor in the Department of English and American Literature and Language.

Rudenstine graduated with an A.B. in English from Princeton University in 1956 after completing his senior thesis, "The Burden of Poetry: A Study in the Art of John Keats, Matthew Arnold and Thomas Stearns Eliot". At Princeton, he participated in Army R.O.T.C. After serving in the U.S. Army as an artillery officer, he attended New College, University of Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned an M.A. In 1964, Rudenstine received a Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard; his dissertation, Sir Philip Sidney: The Styles of Love, directed by Douglas Bush, treated Sidney's poetic development.

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.