Former SUNY Chancellor Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr has certainly lived an interesting life. He was born in Boston. His father was the first African American to pass the foreign service exam and become a career ambassador. But if the father is known to break down barriers, his son only redoubled his efforts. Clifton Wharton Jr graduated Boston Latin School and entered Harvard College at the young age of sixteen. Following graduation there he became the first African American to earn a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University. And not long after he received a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago, another first. In fact, Wharton achieved so many firsts with so little fanfare that some dubbed him, “the quiet pioneer.”
But if his pioneering was quiet, his career certainly wasn’t. He worked for 22 years to promote economic and agricultural development in Latin America and Southeast Asia. He even earned a post as a chairman for the Rockefeller foundation. And, if that weren’t enough, he pioneered higher education when he became the president of Michigan State University and later the Chancellor of the State University of New York in 1978. He was the first African-American to lead the nation’s largest comprehensive system of higher education in New York. After his position as Chancellor ended, he went on to become CEO of TIAA-CREF, becaming the first black CEO of a fortune 500 company. And he was even appointed deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration.
While at SUNY, Wharton is known for initiatives that enhanced the access of the University to all people. He created an independent commission that earned SUNY management greater flexibility from government regulation, resulting in streamlined processes and an enhanced national reputation of quality that to this day remains his legacy. In 2012, he was named Chancellor Emeritus, only the third such honor in SUNY history.
Wharton wrote about all these thing and more in his autobiography, Privilege and Prejudice: The Life of a Black Pioneer. And on Thursday, October 8, he will be giving a talk about the new book at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany. According to the Rockfeller Institute, the talk will be “a rare and intimate conversation with long-time friend and former Washington Post and Times Union editor Harry Rosenfeld. Dr. Wharton will discuss the challenges of competing in a society where obstacles, negative expectations, and stereotypes remained stubbornly in place.”
There are still tickets available to this event. To RSVP, please contact [email protected] or call (518) 443-5258 by Tuesday, October 6th. Seating is limited and free parking is available to attendees.
