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New School Office of the Provost, Judith B. Walzer correspondence

 Record Group
Identifier: NS-01-03-01

Abstract

This record group consists of outgoing correspondence by New School for Social Research Provost Judith Walzer. Arranged chronologically, the files concern subjects such as hiring, admissions, and various committees during her first year as university provost. Walzer was the first person to hold this title in the university's history.

Dates

  • September 1985- August 1986

Creator

Extent

0.38 Cubic Feet

Language of Materials

English

Scope and Contents

This record group documents the first year of Judith B. Walzer's term as New School Provost. It consists of chronologically-ordered outgoing correspondence from Walzer spanning September 1985 to August 1986. The correspondence includes inter-office memoranda addressed to President Jonathan Fanton, academic deans, and administrative departments, as well as letters to alumni, politicians, and faculty members at other institutions. Memoranda discuss the expansion of academic computing capacity, budgeting and compensation, enrollment, tuition and financial aid, hiring and re-appointments, Otis Institute/Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, student alcohol consumption, and the formulation of university policy on AIDS, among other topics. University committees on financial aid, admissions, student life, faculty advising, libraries, academic computing, and educational policy are frequently referenced.

Documentation consists primarily of memomoranda summarizing issues and activities, rather than substantial reports, with reports sometimes referred to rather than included as attachments. There are some exceptions to this, however, including a detailed reply to the New York State Education Department regarding the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum at Eugene Lang College.

Documentation of Walzer's tenure as provost after the period represented here can be found in the Judith B. Walzer papers (NA.0033.01).

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research use. Some files are restricted for a period of time in accordance with The New School Archives’ confidentiality policy, including student records, files with faculty and personnel information, and other sensitive university records. Please contact archivist@newschool.edu for more information

Conditions Governing Use

To publish images of material from this collection, permission must be obtained in writing from the New School Archives and Special Collections. Please contact: archivist@newschool.edu.

Biographical Note

Judith Borodovko Walzer was the first provost of the New School for Social Research (now, The New School), serving in that role from 1985 until 1997. Her time in that role parallels the administration of New School President Jonathan Fanton, who served from 1982 until 1999.

Born in New York City in 1935, Walzer received her BA in 1958, MA in 1960, and PhD in 1967, all from Brandeis University. She began her career as a university administrator in 1974, as director of the Office for Women's Education at Radcliffe College, where she was also made associate dean in 1976. In 1977, following the announcement of Radcliffe's merger with Harvard University, Walzer resigned from Radcliffe and became senior tutor and assistant dean for co-education at Harvard. In 1980, she left Harvard to become assistant to the president at Princeton University, where she worked until becoming provost at The New School.

While serving as provost, Walzer was concurrently a professor of literature, primarily teaching English and American literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After resigning as provost in 1998 and going on a year of sabbatical, she resumed teaching literature at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts from September 1999 until her retirement on July 1, 2007. During this period, Walzer also taught in the Parsons School of Design Liberal Studies program and served as chair of the Eugene Lang College Program in Literature and the Arts.

As of 2021, Walzer's education career continues at the Princeton (New Jersey) Senior Resource Center's Evergreen Forum, where she teaches courses in film. She is the wife of political theorist Michael Walzer, a frequent lecturer at The New School, and sister-in-law of historian Judith Walzer Levitt.

Arrangement

Arranged chronologically.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

These files formed part of a large transfer of records in 2015 from the Office of the President, which included records from other high-level administrative offices apart from the university president. Archives staff encountered these records in the same records carton as those belonging to New School Dean Allen Austill and separated them to form the present record group.

Related Materials

The New School Archives holds the papers of Judith B. Walzer (NA.0033.01), which chronologically suceeds this collection.

Processing Information

The original labels on the folders were, "Judith B, Walzer - Chron File," followed by consecutive numbers (e.g., #1) and precise dates covered in the files. Items were held in each folder with metal pronged fasteners that archivists removed during processing.

Title
Guide to the New School Office of the Provost, Judith B. Walzer correspondence
Status
Completed
Author
Jack Wells and The New School Archives and Special Collections Staff
Date
December 13, 2021
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Revision Statements

  • April 29, 2024: Victoria Fernandez revised the scope and content note and added a related materials note that references the Judith B. Walzer papers (NA.0033.01).