Improbable Life

Regular price €38.99
Regular price €39.99 Sale Sale price €38.99
A01=Michael I. Sovern
A01=Michael Sovern
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Michael I. Sovern
Author_Michael Sovern
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BM
Category=DNC
Category=JNB
Category=JNM
Category=JNMN
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
education
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Language_English
PA=Available
personal memoirs
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
schools
softlaunch

Product details

  • ISBN 9780231167628
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 18 Feb 2014
  • Publisher: Columbia University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

Columbia University began the second half of the twentieth century in decline, bottoming out with the student riots of 1968. Yet by the close of the century, the institution had regained its stature as one of the greatest universities in the world. According to the New York Times, "If any one person is responsible for Columbia's recovery, it is surely Michael Sovern." In this memoir, Sovern, who served as the university's president from 1980 to 1993, recounts his sixty-year involvement with the institution after growing up in the South Bronx. He addresses key issues in academia, such as affordability, affirmative action, the relative rewards of teaching and research, lifetime tenure, and the role of government funding. Sovern also reports on his many off-campus adventures, including helping the victims of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, stepping into the chairmanship of Sotheby's, responding to a strike by New York City's firemen, a police riot and threats to shut down the city's transit system, playing a role in the theater world as president of the Shubert Foundation, and chairing the Commission on Integrity in Government.
Michael I. Sovern is president emeritus of Columbia University and the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.