spacepace

As the epoch of organization and protest came to an end, Pace College pressed ahead with its efforts to realize a major goal which had thus far eluded it: the attainment of university status. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the trustees and administration had moved in this direction by supporting the introduction of doctoral programs. In February 1965 the Development and Executive Committees of the board of trustees "recommended that a study be made as to the possibility of developing a Ph.D. degree program in the field of business." Two and a half years later, Pace sought permission from the Board of Regents to confer the "Master of Business Administration at Pace College Westchester; Ph.D. in Business Administration at Pace College New York City; and Master of Arts at both New York and Westchester."  At the same time, a petition was submitted "for change of name of the College to Pace University."     Five years would pass before Pace was accorded the right to offer a doctoral program leading to the Doctor of Professional Studies or D.P.S. degree. The new degree in business was intended for managers who already possessed a master's degree.  These experienced executives were not compelled to interrupt their careers while pursuing a terminal degree at Pace, but within ten years of their admission to the program, they had to complete 55 credits, 12 of which were awarded for the doctoral dissertation. Participation in interdisciplinary seminars, successful completion of oral qualifying examinations, and an oral defense of the dissertation were other requirements of the program.    Securing permission to award a doctoral degree was only one hurdle Pace had to overcome on the long road to attaining university status. Other formidable obstacles took the form of affiliations with outside institutions, something the New York State Education Department viewed as eminently desirable. The first of these affiliations was with the Haskins Laboratories.

Founded in the 1930s by Dr. Caryl P. Haskins, who later became president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., the Haskins Laboratories gained world-wide recognition for research on topics ranging from tropical parasites to psycho-linguistics.  By the 1960s there were three research groups at Haskins: Biology, Marine Microbiology, and Linguistics. All three shared a building in midtown Manhattan until they were forced out to permit the creation of additional offices for the nearby United Nations. At that point the groups were spun off as separates entities, with the Marine Microbiology group joining Yale and the Linguistics group affiliating with both Yale and the University of Connecticut.  In 1970 the Biology group of the Laboratories became part of Pace College, New York.

    At the very time that the affiliation between Pace and the Haskins Laboratories was being worked out, the College was seriously considering several other such relationships. Merger negotiations took place with the Mercantile Library, a prestigious private institution in midtown Manhattan, the College of Insurance, and the Optometric Center of New York, but no affiliations resulted. It was a different story with New York Law School. Founded in 1891 by a group of Columbia University law professors, fully accredited New York Law School numbered among its early faculty members Woodrow Wilson and Chief justice Charles Evans Hughes. A New York Law alumnus, John M. Harlan, was also appointed to the Supreme Court.

    Despite its proud tradition, New York Law was facing a period of uncertainty in the early 1960s, occasioned by the City of New York's acquisition of its building on William Street.  Forced to move, the school bought a building at Worth and Church Streets. From the standpoint of convenience, the new location was ideal, for it was within easy walking distance of the courthouses at Foley Square.   In economic terms, however, the new building was problematic because it required costly renovations.  These expenditures, together with the indebtedness assumed in connection with the acquisition of the structure, led the school's board of trustees to seek financial assistance from the Joseph I and Evelyn J. Lubin Foundation, Inc. Since Joseph Lubin was a Pace alumnus and a member of the College's board of trustees in 1962 when New York Law approached the Lubin Foundation, it seemed only natural to explore the possibility of an affiliation between Pace and New York Law School.

   Negotiations between the two institutions began in 1964.  Two years later Pace and New York Law were considering an actual merger.   At a meeting of the Pace board of trustees, in the autumn of 1966, Dr. Mortola "underlined the fact that the possible merger with the Law School and the development of a Ph.D. program in the School of Business Administration were two steps of major significance in the College's move toward University status."  In the spring of 1967, however, several members of the board of trustees of New York Law expressed reservations about an affiliation with Pace until the outcome of the Middle States evaluation of the College was known. This prompted Dr Mortola to write, "It seems to me an unwarranted delay and an unjustified concern on the part of any Trustees of the New York Law School to feel that our plans should await this future action.... Pace is in a very strong position. It already has accreditation. Academically, financially, and administratively it is in excellent shape."

     These words were not lost on the trustees of New York Law. In November 1967 a letter of intent was signed and the wheels were set in motion for a full-scale affiliation to take effect in September 1968. In the meantime, the Board of Regents and the American Bar Association had to approve the affiliation; Pace trustees had to be appointed to the board of New York Law and law school trustees had to be selected to serve on the Pace board. With 9,500 students, 8,000 of whom were in New York, Pace was clearly the larger of the two institutions.  New York Law School had an enrollment of 500 but, despite its relatively small size, the affiliation agreement called for the law school to remain autonomous. An exchange of faculty between the two institutions was envisioned, however, as was movement of qualified Pace undergraduates directly into law school.

   A full-scale refurbishing of the New York Law School building was also considered. Towards that end, Pace dispatched an architect to the law school in 1972, but the lukewarm reaction to his suggestions caused the College administrator who accompanied him to inform Dr. Mortola: "... it was a distressing afternoon, and I think we might as well have been talking to the statue of Ben Franklin."  The impasse over refurbishing notwithstanding, New York Law School's board of trustees endorsed Pace's petition to the Board of Regents for university status.   Board chairman John V. Thornton wrote a strong letter of support on Pace's behalf in February 1973.  Soon thereafter both schools were talking about a full-fledged merger and the possibility of establishing a law school in Westchester.

    New York Law School desired a merger which would have permitted it to remain "a separate corporate entity."  Pace took a decidedly different approach. The College envisioned a "New York Law School of Pace University" and a law school dean who would "report directly to the President of Pace University. "  Such diametrically opposed views rendered a merger impossible, and the existing affiliation untenable. The affiliation was therefore terminated on June 30, 1975, by mutual consent of the two institutions. By that time Pace had been a university for two years and was in the process of establishing its own law school.

    Although the relationship between Pace and New York Law School was stillborn, the mere existence of the affiliation proved helpful in the College's quest for university status. An affiliation between Pace and New York Medical College paid a similar dividend.  In 1967, when the 108-year-old medical school announced that it was planning to leave Manhattan, where its facilities were both old and cramped, Dr. Mortola wrote to Westchester County Executive, Edwin G. Michaellan, "Because there has been considerable discussion about the location of a Medical School in Westchester County, it seems to me that I should write to let you know that I would be willing to explore the possibility of a Medical School on Pace's Westchester campus."

   In his reply to Dr. Mortola, the County Executive said: "In all candor, there has been some talk on the part of those responsible for operating the New York Medical College that a future affiliation with the State University would probably be desirable."

   Undaunted, Pace pursued an affiliation with New York Medical College while simultaneously exploring the possibility of joining with St. Vincent's Hospital to establish a medical school. Although the latter proposal was dropped, early in 1973 Pace College and the New York Medical College agreed to a transfer of the medical school's Graduate School of Nursing to Pace, with degrees henceforth jointly conferred by Pace and the New York Medical College. The two institutions also agreed to explore the possibility of establishing joint doctoral programs in biochemistry and microbiology, a combined undergraduate-M.D. program for disadvantaged students, a program of paraprofessional education in the health sciences, and programs in mental retardation.

    The trustees of Pace College endorsed the affiliation with the New York Medical College because they believed that it would help Pace attain university status. Some of them had misgivings, however, fearing that the affiliation would impose new financial burdens on the College. Gustav Lienhard, for example, wrote, "While I realize that university status will be very beneficial to us in many respects, we certainly must - and I know you are - be deeply concerned with the economic picture, which I don't happen to feel is going to improve too much in the next several years ahead for private schools."

   Although the 1973 affiliation with the New York Medical College was seen as a potential financial drain, an agreement concluded two years earlier with the American Academy of Dramatic Arts was viewed more favorably. Under the terms of this accord, Pace was to award the degree of Associate in Arts to "those students who successfully complete the American Academy of Dramatic Arts program and the requisite remainder of the curriculum at Pace for that degree."

   The various affiliations made by Pace College in the early 1970s were helpful in obtaining university status. Indeed, without them it is unlikely that the College would have reached its goal in 1973 because only eight years earlier the New York State Education Department had concluded that Pace did "not merit the name university" because it lacked doctoral programs and professional schools, and had "no appreciable liberal arts and sciences graduate enrollment."   The state also said that the College "library of some 65,000 volumes is not consonant with the scope of a university." The lack of a sufficient number of doctoral degree holders on the faculty and the paucity of research were also advanced as reasons for not according Pace university status.

    In 1969 the state adopted new requirements for university status: three doctoral programs and several professional schools. For a time, it seemed unlikely that Pace would achieve the elusive goal, but the administration and trustees persevered. The minutes of a March 1972 meeting of the board of trustees state that Dr. Mortola "pointed out that in one unit of the State University over a seven year span, 19 different doctoral degrees have been approved."  The minutes state further that "Pace has been seeking authority to grant a doctoral degree for more than five years but has been frustrated by State Education Department bureaucratic maneuvering.  It was moved by Dr. Pace...that the petition for changing of designation from Pace College to Pace University submitted on July 28, 1965 be updated and reactivated in the Department of Education and if there should not be a positive response in a reasonable time the College should undertake appropriate legal action."   Three months later, T. Edward Hollander, Deputy Commissioner for Higher and Professional Education, wrote that "while Pace comes close to qualifying it does not do so at present."  Dr. Hollander also said, "The Department does believe that Pace College would qualify as a university if it should offer (either directly or through an affiliated institution) a medical degree and a law degree, in addition to its present doctorate in professional studies."  Dr. Hollander advised Pace to withdraw its petition for university status. The College did so, albeit reluctantly, but continued to negotiate with New York Law and the New York Medical College.  In February 1973, just as the affiliation with the medical school was being approved, the Pace board of trustees resubmitted the petition for university status. In the meantime, in September 1972 New York State Commissioner of Education Ewald B. Nyquist wrote to Dr. Mortola, saying, "I am indeed hopeful that Pace College will qualify as quickly as possible for university status....Pace College has come a long way since its origin as an institute offering professional programs. It is hard to identify another institution in the state that has developed so fully while maintaining high standards of academic performance in so short a period of time.  Despite his kind words, Commissioner Nyquist reiterated what Deputy Commissioner Hollander had said about the need for affiliations with a medical college and law school. It was only a matter of months before Pace was able to satisfy the State Education Department in this regard, due to the affiliations with New York Medical College and New York Law School, and, at long last, on March 23, 1973, the Board of Regents approved the College's petition. Pace was now a university!

    Reporting this development in an article entitled "Pace Graduates to a University," the New York Times declared, "Pace College capped its 67-year climb from humble origins as a trade school to the top rung in higher education yesterday when the State Board of Regents designated it a full-fledged university."  The Times went on to report that Pace President, Dr. Edward J. Mortola, had just unveiled plans for a thirty-story tower opposite City Hall to house many of the university's graduate programs. Designed by the firm of I.M. Pei, the Academic Center tower "would include commercial spaces and public plazas and walkways to unite the campus with the retail and pedestrian areas along Nassau Street."  Pace officials were careful to point out that construction of the proposed building was dependent upon the University's fund-raising efforts and that, in any event, "even if the necessary money were raised, construction would not begin for another four or five years."

    Nearly twenty years after Pace had been accorded university status, the Academic Center tower had not made it off the drawing board. Countless other projects took priority but, at the very least, the concept of the tower served as a beacon for the state's newest university as it marched confidently into a period of unprecedented expansion in the mid-1970s. For Pace, university status was a commencement rather than a culmination, and the best was yet to come.

In 1974 The School of Arts and Sciences was renamed the Charles H. Dyson College of Arts and Sciences.

In 1975 The College of White Plains consolidated with Pace University.

In 1976 the School of Law opened on the White Plains campus.  To learn more about the law school, "The Pace University School of Law."