Series III: George D. Stoddard, 1960-1964

George D. Stoddard's appointment by the Board of Trustees as Executive Vice-President took place on January 25, 1960 during the tenure of President Carroll V. Newsom (1956-1962). Stoddard had directed the exhaustive Self-Study, published in 1956, which redefined NYU's educational mission and constituency. He played a central role in constructing a new hierarchy of administrative offices that centralized educational policy and budgetary control, and in 1960 assumed the office he helped design, the second-highest at NYU.

During Stoddard's tenure, the University expanded traditional instruction within the schools and fostered innovative programs in order to draw new students, such as the Communications Art Group and television instruction. The University experimented with international programs and cooperative education abroad while relationships with federal and state governments grew more diverse and complex. Stoddard associated himself with expansion of the Washington Square campus through renovation and construction, and several files in are concerned with space utilization and new construction. Wholly new programs appeared during his term of office, including recruitment and training for the Peace Corps and a new level of concern for on campus student health services. Of particular interest is Stoddard's attention and response to preservation of the University's faculty, student, and operating records dating from 1962, the year in which major cities in the United States were being menaced by Russian missiles based in Cuba.

Within the general correspondence files is correspondence regarding increasing levels of crime around the Height campus in 1959-1960 and its effect on faculty and students. Those files also contain restricted materials concerning a troubled student and a graduate whose credentials were questioned. The University College file contains a tentative policy statement of February 1960, regarding the education of women at the Heights campus. Stoddard's tenure spanned the period in which Newsom left office and James M. Hester became President.

The records are arranged in four series that reflect the four years of his tenure, and each series is arranged alphabetically. The sub-headings are not uniform for all the series because new topical headings presented themselves as the office and its responsibilities elaborated the record-keeping system, and care must be exercised when searching for like files and like subjects within the four series. Some files appear to be incomplete, and the earliest files, some dating from 1957, date from prior administrations. This subgroup has been rearranged and refoldered by the supervising archivist, who discarded the folder dates because they were inaccurate and misleading. A few files are restricted that contain records of faculty discipline and tenure cases and an ROTC commission declination.