President Thomas Ehrlich speeches, 1987-1994

Biographical Note

Thomas Ehrlich was born on March 4, 1934 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He became president of Indiana University on August 1, 1987. During his presidency he concentrated on an academic agenda to enhance IU's position as an international research university of the first rank, and simultaneously a national leader in reaching out to higher education's emerging new majority of nontraditional students. Ehrlich is a scholar, educator, university administrator, lawyer, and governmental executive. He was Provost (chief academic officer responsible for all educational research components of the university and all aspects of student affairs) and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania before serving as President at Indiana.

In the 1970s Ehrlich was Dean and Richard E. Lang Professor at the Stanford University Law School; first President of Legal Services Corporation in Washington D.C.; and first Director of the International Development Cooperation Agency, also in Washington D.C. After graduating from law school, President Ehrlich served as a law clerk for highly respected Judge Learned Hand of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York City.

Ehrlich became chair of the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities' Big Ten Council of Presidents on July 1, and served on the boards of several national organizations. He has undertaken a number of special responsibilities for the United States government. In 1991 he was appointed by President Bush to the Board of Directors of the Commission on National and Community Service. He was reappointed in 1992 and served as Chairman of the Board. He also served as the executive-committee chair of Campus Compact, an organization of college and university presidents, formed to promote student volunteer service.

He was graduated magna cum laude from both Harvard College (A.B. 1956) and Harvard Law School (LL.B. 1959). He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and served as Article Editor for the Harvard Law Review. He has three honorary degrees, from Notre Dame (1980), Villanova University (1979), and the University of Pennsylvania (1987), and is author or co-author of several books and many articles.

In addition to his presidential duties at Indiana University, President Ehrlich served as professor of law and regularly taught undergraduates and law students. His tenure as president ended following the 1994 school year. After retiring from IU, he spent a semester teaching at Duke University before moving to California. He then moved to California where he became a Distinguished University Scholar at California State University and an adjunct professor at Stanford Law School. President Ehrlich and his wife, Ellen Rome Ehrlich, have three children, David, Elizabeth, and Paul. *Biography excerpted from 1993 Biographical Sketch with minor revisions.