Favorite Son

Columbia hails a new chief

For Columbia University the 1970s ended better than they began. The decade saw the campus marred by student antiwar protests and disputes with tenant neighbors in Morningside Heights. The university's cumulative deficit rose to a crunching $87.2 million, while the need for more space grew and reliance on federal dollars became burdensome. Some promising students and scholars shunned the Ivy League campus, and just talk of sharing the faculties of Columbia and Barnard colleges provoked anxiety at the distinguished sister school across the street.

Under the skillful presidency of William J. McGill, the future of the nation's 5th oldest degree-granting school (founded in 1754) has lately seemed brighter: the budget is balanced, the campus is peaceful, and renovations of facilities are under way. Now the trustees are determined that the healing process continue into the 1980s. Last week, after screening 700 candidates, Columbia chose a favorite son ideally equipped for the task: Michael I. Sovern, 48, provost and former dean of Columbia's School of Law, who will become the university's 17th president when McGill retires on July 1.

A gifted lawyer and labor mediator, Sovern made his mark on Morningside Heights in 1968 when he used reason to calm a divided faculty and helped establish a democratic campus senate. He has shown similar peacemaking skills in helping to settle New York City's strikes; for 14 years he has also served as consultant to TIME'S Law section. Born in The Bronx, Sovern attended the Bronx High School of Science, took both his B. A. and law degrees at Columbia as a scholarship student and at 28 became the youngest full professor in the school's history. He and his wife Joan, a sculptor, live in Manhattan; they have six children by previous marriages.

Urbane, open-minded and endowed with a joshing good humor, Sovern calls himself a subscriber to the "broad approach to liberal arts study," and hopes to build on it. Does that mean imposing some new credo or curriculum on the university? "Wise presidents do not impose," he says, in a lesson on mediation. "They encourage."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.