Pace University Appoints Stephen J. Friedman as President
Feb. 11, 2009, NEW YORK — The trustees of Pace University have appointed Stephen J. Friedman as President of the University. Friedman has been Acting President of the private, professionally-oriented institution since June 4, 2007.
A well-known American lawyer, Friedman was Dean of Pace University Law School for three years before becoming President. During that time the law faculty engaged in significant curricular reform and the school showed marked improvements in admissions, bar passage results, and job placements in law firms and judicial clerkships.
Previously Friedman had moved between public service and private practice, clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., serving as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for capital markets policy and as a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission; as a lawyer in the private sector he was a senior partner and Co-Chair of the Corporate Department of Debevoise & Plimpton as well as executive vice president and general counsel of both The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and The E.F. Hutton Group.
The appointment makes Pace one of three large, private universities in the New York Metropolitan area headed by former Supreme Court clerks. The others are Columbia (Lee Bollinger) and NYU (John Sexton).
Friedman is a magna cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University.
Admissions successes. Since taking charge of Pace, he has helped the University attract the largest number of new, full-time undergraduate and graduate students in 10 years last fall, and draw a record number of inquiries for next fall. The University has stabilized its finances and is focusing course offerings on traditional strengths in professional education built on a foundation of liberal arts and sciences. It also is creating interdepartmental and interschool centers of excellence.
