Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

Trachtenberg is currently a partner at the international law firm Rimon Law P.C. He joined the firm on December 1, 2014 and is based at the Washington D.C. office. He heads the firm's University Practice group.

U.S. President George W. Bush appointed Trachtenberg to serve in the Honorary Delegation to accompany him to Jerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in May 2008.

He has received 22 honorary degrees in recognition of his contributions to higher education. These include an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Columbia University in 2007, a Doctor of Public Service degree from The George Washington University in 2008, an honorary Doctor of Public Administration degree from South Korea’s Kyonggi University, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Hanyang University in South Korea, and an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the University of Hartford in 1989.

The university Board of Trustees renamed the public policy school for Trachtenberg, calling it the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, similar to when the university renamed the Elliott School of International Affairs for Lloyd Elliott, the outgoing president. Trachtenberg holds an endowed chair of public service in the newly named Trachtenberg School. In the Spring of 2007, after announcing his retirement, President Trachtenberg announced himself as that year's commencement keynote speaker, a move met by widespread student outcry and petitioning. Trachtenberg withdrew from the keynote position citing the Virginia Tech massacre without further elaboration.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education survey of college presidents' salaries for 2007-08, then-President Stephen Trachtenberg topped the nation with a compensation of $3.7 million.

Trachtenberg was recognized throughout his career at GW for his commitment to education. By Resolution of the Mayor and the Council of the District of Columbia, Dec. 4, 2006, was declared "Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Day," recognizing his 19 years of leadership at GW and in the city. Similarly, by Resolution of the Council of the District of Columbia, January 22, 1998, was declared "Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Day" in honor of President Trachtenberg's commitments to minority students, scholarship programs, public school partnerships and community service.

An inscription on the reverse side of a bust of George Washington on the North lawn of the House of the Temple (a Masonic temple in Washington, D.C.), cites Trachtenberg as a 33° Freemason of the Scottish Rite. Trachtenberg contributed a foreword to the book by William L. Fox, Lodge of The Double-Headed Eagle: Two Centuries of Scottish Rite Freemasonry In America's Southern Jurisdiction (1997).

When President Trachtenberg took office in 1988, tuition at GWU was $9,570, significantly below the national median of $11,330 for all four-year colleges. When he left office in 2007, tuition was $37,790, among the highest in the nation and significantly above the national median of $30,226. Financial aid kept pace with tuition.

Trachtenberg is a native of Brooklyn, New York who graduated from James Madison High School in 1955. He graduated from Columbia University in 1959, and earned a J.D. from Yale in 1962 and a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1966.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg (born December 14, 1937) was the 15th President of the George Washington University, serving from 1988 to 2007. On August 1, 2007, he retired from the presidency and became GW's President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.