| 1 | Name: | Dr. Paul LeClerc | |
| Institution: | Columbia University | ||
| Year Elected: | 2006 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1941 | ||
Paul LeClerc graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1963 and spent the next academic year studying at the Sorbonne. Returning to New York City, he completed a Ph.D. in French literature at Columbia University. He joined the faculty of Union College (1966-79), where he chaired the Department of Modern Languages and the Division of Humanities, and received research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Philosophical Society to support his scholarly work on the French Enlightenment. Dr. LeClerc returned to New York City in 1979 to join the central administration of the City University of New York, the nation's third largest university and its largest urban university system. He served successively as University Dean for Academic Affairs and Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs for CUNY, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Baruch College, and, in 1988, President of Hunter College. He also held the position of Professor of French and taught during nearly every semester of his presidency. Dr. LeClerc became President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Public Library in late 1993. With collections now numbering some 55 million items, the New York Public consists of 89 libraries spread over 130 square miles of New York City. In 2005, there were 15 million physical reader visits to the library system and 20 million electronic visits. He retired in June 2011 and is now a Visiting Scholar in the Department of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University. Paul LeClerc is the author or co-editor of five scholarly volumes on writers of the French Enlightenment, and his contributions to French culture earned him the Order of the Academic Palms (Officier) in 1989, the French Légion d'honneur (Chevalier) in 1996, and the French Légion d'honneur (Officier) in 2012. He is presently a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a Director of the National Book Foundation and the American Academy in Rome. He serves on the Editorial Board of The Complete Works of Voltaire (Oxford University) and on the Advisory Committee of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (Yale University). | |||