Frederick Herbert Jackson became the Assistant Executive Vice President at NYU in 1964 and held this position until he was appointed Vice President for Humanities and Social Sciences in 1966. While Assistant Executive Vice President, Jackson supervised instruction in the humanities and the social sciences.

Frederick H. Jackson was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 16, 1919. He received his AB in English literature from Brown University in 1941. At Brown Jackson was a John Hay scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1948 and 1950, he received his AM and Ph.D., respectively, from the University of Pennsylvania. There Jackson was a Harrison Fellow in American Civilization from 1947-1948. Jackson's areas of academic interests included American intellectual history and the history of American higher education.

Jackson taught at Marietta College (1948-1950) and later at the University of Illinois (1950-1955) in the Division of General Studies as an instructor and Assistant Professor of History. He was also the Executive Assistant (1955-1957) and the Executive Associate (1957-1964) of the Carnegie Corporation of New York before coming to NYU.

Jackson's other achievements and accomplishments include studying at Harvard (1941-1942) as a University Fellow in American Civilization and serving in the Air Force during World War II. He was an instructor in bombsight and automatic flight control from 1943-1944 and a statistical control officer from 1944-1946.

He married Eleanor S. Whittemore in 1942.

His numerous articles and reviews have been published in journals such as the American Historical Review, The Progressive, and The Historian, and his book, Simeon Eben Baldwin: Lawyer, Scholar, Statesman, was published by Columbia University Press in 1955. Jackson received a Bicentennial Medallion from Brown in 1965 for his academic achievements.

He left his post at NYU in 1967 to become the fourth president of Clark University.