Heritage & History
- Ursula C. Schwerin
- 1978-1988
Dr. Ursula C. Schwerin is the only City Tech graduate to have returned to the College as president. She assumed the presidency in 1978, following a long and distinguished career as an educator at the State University of New York Agricultural and Technical College at Farmingdale, where she rose to the position of dean of instruction. She was the first woman in America to become president of a technical college and also the first woman to be named president of a City University of New York community college.
Under her leadership, the College made a successful transition from a community college to an internationally recognized leader in the field of technical education. During her 10-year presidency, the second longest in the school’s history, she redefined the College’s mission and initiated a flurry of new academic programs, including the first at the baccalaureate level. She established the nation's first international exchange program in hospitality management between a U.S. college and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in the People’s Republic of China. She also established the College’s foundation, the College Advisory Council, and numerous innovative and highly productive partnerships with community-based businesses and other external concerns in both the private and public sectors. She initiated, fought for and brought to fruition a massive $42 million capital expansion program.
She earned an associate’s degree in dental hygiene from the College in 1958, and went on to earn her bachelor’s, master’s and a PhD in human relations from New York University. Schwerin is remembered for her extraordinarily sympathetic attitude toward students, most of whom came from families of modest means and were the first in their immediate families to pursue higher education. This attitude was grounded in her own struggles, first as a refugee from Nazi tyranny and later in the classroom as a returning older student.
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