The Improbable President

The State University of New York at Albany was badly shaken by the turmoil of the Vietnam War era. But It was doubly taxing for a campus caught up in converting a small teacher's college into a major university center. Worse, budget cuts had led to the closing of academic departments and the firing of faculty. By 1977, there was serious concern about how this not yet fully formed campus, unsure of where it was going, would cope with these reversals. That would be the challenge facing a new president--the fifth in eight years. His qualifications were unorthodox. Before becoming a faculty member, he was a national authority on community corrections, among other things organizing and directing the parole. All the while, he contended with the life long, crippling effects of polio and the label--disabled.