"Columbia University President” Michael I. Sovern Hand Signed FDC Dated 1954 For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Columbia University" Michael I. Sovern Signed First Day Cover Dated 1954.

ES-7927E

Michael

Ira Sovern (December 1, 1931

– January 20, 2020) was the 17th president of Columbia University. Prior to his death, he served as the

Chancellor Kent Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He

was a noted legal scholar of Labor Law and an expert in employment

discrimination. overn was born in the Bronx to a dress businessman father and bookkeeper

mother. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1949, summa cum York City in 1953, and Columbia Law School in

1955, receiving the prestigious John Ordronaux prize for having the highest

academic average in his graduating class. Immediately after graduation, he

joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota

Law School and taught there until 1957. He returned to Columbia

as a visiting professor in 1957 and then joined the permanent faculty, becoming

the youngest full professor in the University's history in 1960. He has

mediated for New York City in

transit worker contract negotiations, as well as firefighter and police

disputes. From 1962 to 1966, he was the Research Director concerning Legal

Restraints on Racial Discrimination in Employment for the Twentieth Century

Fund. He was a law consultant for Time magazine for fifteen years (1965–1980). Sovern

served as Special Counsel to Governor Brendan Thomas Byrne of New Jersey from

1974 to 1977. He was the co-chairman of the Second Circuit commission on

Reduction of Burdens and Costs in Civil Litigation from 1977 to 1980, chairman

of the New York City Charter

Revision Commission from 1982 to 1983 and chairman of the

State-City Commission on Integrity in Government in 1986. During the 1968

strife on Columbia's campus, he served as chairman of the faculty executive

committee which was credited with easing tensions. Sovern became Dean of the

Law School in 1970 and was named Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs

and Provost in 1979. He became President of Columbia University in 1980. While

President, he quadrupled Columbia's endowment, recruited many prominent faculty

and presided over the opening of the University's main undergraduate division,

Columbia College, to women students. Perhaps most importantly, he greatly

improved the university's financial health by balancing its budget and

introducing strict budgetary controls. He stepped down as president in 1993 and

returned to the faculty at Columbia Law School. He received honorary doctorates

from Tel Aviv University,

the University of Southern

California and Columbia. A professorship in his name has been

endowed at Columbia Law School, and

the American Academy in Rome has

established a fellowship in his honor.