Richard C. Levin

Richard C. Levin, the twenty-second President of Yale University and Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Economics, will lead a delegation to Asia in May 2001, coinciding with Yale's 300th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of the Yale-China Association. Yale's Tercentennial Celebration provides a perfect opportunity to honor Yale's long history of connections and exchanges in Asia, as well as to highlight the next century's collaborations. Members of the delegation will be commenting on their research, teaching, and programs that focus on important issues in contemporary Asia.

Appointed Yale's president in 1993, Mr. Levin's strong management has enabled Yale to establish balanced operating budgets, complete a US$1.7 billion fundraising campaign, and invest the first US$1.2 billion of a US$3 billion campus renovation and building program. He has developed an effective partnership with the city of New Haven to revitalize commercial activity near the campus, increase the number of new companies based on research conducted at Yale that locate in New Haven, and create a fellowship program to support students who spend their summers in local community service.

President Levin has articulated a compelling vision of Yale's fourth century as an international university and has recruited outstanding deans and program directors to serve the school into the next century. A central aspect of the implementation of this vision is the forging of new alliances and establishment of programs in emerging fields. Programs that have been created in recent years include the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; the Yale School of Medicine's Internet Partnership, to bring the latest research on infectious diseases to doctors around the world; and the Yale Law School's China Law Center, a collaboration to increase understanding of China's legal system and assist China's legal reform process.

Drawing on his scholarship in economics, President Levin has served as a strong advocate of government funding of basic scientific research conducted by universities. He has testified in Washington, D.C. and delivered speeches illuminating the significant economic benefits of academic research. In recognition of his contributions to higher education, he was awarded an honorary degree of doctor of civil law from Oxford University in 1998, as well as honorary degrees from Harvard and Princeton. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A specialist in the economics of technological change, President Levin has written extensively on such diverse subjects as intellectual property rights, the patent system, industrial research and development, and the effects of antitrust and public regulation on private industry. Prior to his appointment as president, Mr. Levin devoted himself for two decades to teaching, research, and administration. His teaching included courses on microeconomics, industrial organization, antitrust, the oil industry, the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing industries, and the history of economic thought. He served on dozens of major committees, supervised an unusually large number of doctoral dissertations, chaired the economics department, and served as dean of the graduate school.

President Levin serves as a member of the Board of Science, Technology, and Economic Policy at the National Academy of Sciences, and he is currently directing a major study of the economic effects of changes in intellectual property law for the Academy. President Levin also serves as a trustee of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States. He recently played a leadership role in the formation of the new University Alliance for Life-Long Learning, a distance learning collaboration among Oxford, Princeton, Stanford and Yale.

A native of San Francisco, President Levin received his bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University in 1968 and studied politics and philosophy at Oxford University, where he earned a B. Litt. degree. In 1974 he received his Ph.D. from Yale and was named to the Yale faculty.

President Levin maintains his involvement with students through regular meetings, frequent meals in student dining halls, and regular attendance at sporting events. He and his wife, Jane, are longtime New Haven residents. They have four children.

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