Remembering Michael Schwartz

Steve Balch

We recently learned that Michael Schwartz passed away on January 2nd at age 86. Michael held the distinction of being the only member of the National Association of Scholars to have served as president of a public university—two, in fact, Kent State (1982-1991) and Cleveland State (2002-2009). In both positions, he was a strong champion of excellence, replacing open admission with admission requirements at CSU and substantially elevating the bar passage rate of its law school. (An administration building now bears Mike’s name at Kent State, as does the library at CSU.) Mike told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in an interview during the final year of his presidency that his greatest accomplishment at CSU was “giving back the institution its pride”.

Needless to say, having a successful career as a senior academic administrator, no less as a president, is a strange accompaniment to NAS membership. Indeed, Mike actually spent a year on the NAS board. However, he confessed to some discomfort at sitting in a conclave whose general opinion of higher education CEOs was less than flattering. He left the board but never the organization.

Mike may have been the last of that nearly extinct breed of university leaders drawn to their service out of a love of genuine education and the social, economic, and intellectual mobility it promised. He will be missed.


Photo courtesy of Cleveland State University.

  • Share

Most Commented

June 5, 2024

1.

Subpoenas for All!

Ohio Northern University gnaws its teeth with an appetite for vindictive lawfare....

June 6, 2024

2.

Backlash: Sometimes It Hurts So Good

We have undermined the leftist status quo in higher education for decades with the persistence of Morlocks. You really should be more alarmed about us than you are. Not that I’m going......

May 7, 2024

3.

Biden Admin Is Weaponizing Title IX To Promote Fringe Sexual Politics

Earlier this month, the Office for Civil Rights in the Biden Education Department issued a new regulation on how schools must observe Title IX. This rule transf......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

May 7, 2012

2.

Ask a Scholar: Declining the Second Term

Has there ever been a president who did not run for a second term by choice?...

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...