The 15th president of Indiana University talks about his experiences in various leadership roles and the importance of prioritizing goals.
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“I was with a group in every class of not more than 14 students in which we had a truly, deeply inquiring dialogue about the issues in the class and it was an exhilarating experience for me--transformative experience for me in a lot of ways and set my marker for what education ought to be though too rarely is.”
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“ I went and spoke in just about every little town in Indiana. I visited most of the rotaries and the Lions Clubs and learned a lot about what decent people are doing in the state and how they lived and what their concerns are…”
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“At any one time, the most important thing I think is to say, given the arena in which I'm seeking to be a leader, what are the three or four key things that I really want to get done and that are important to get done, they're top priorities.”
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Tom Ehrlich received his LL.B., magna cum laude, from the Harvard School of Law in 1959. He served as law clerk for Judge Learned Hand in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, New York City (1959–60). From 1960 to 1962, he practiced with Foley, Sammond & Lardner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He then moved to Washington, D.C., where he served as special assistant to the legal advisor in the Department of State (1962–65) and as special assistant to the undersecretary of state in international negotiations (1964–65).
Ehrlich was a professor of law at Stanford University (1965–71) and dean of the Stanford Law School (1971–75). In 1976, Ehrlich returned to Washington. He was the first president of the Legal Services Corporation, a nonprofit organization established by federal statute to support legal assistance to the poor (1976–79) and was appointed by President Carter as director of the International Development Agency (1979–80).
Ehrlich held two major academic positions: provost of University of Pennsylvania (1982–87) and president of Indiana University (1987–94). He has since served as distinguished university scholar at California State University (1995–2000) and senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1997–2007).
Explore the complete oral history of Thomas Ehrlich“It’s a combination of both but I certainly think that most of it is being made.”
