- Eamon Kelly
Eamon Michael Kelly is the President Emeritus of
Tulane University , having served as its president for seventeen years. He was born inNew York City and attendedAll Hallows High School . He received his bachelor’s degree fromFordham University in 1958. After military service, he attendedColumbia University from 1960 to 1965, where he earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in economics. Following graduation from Columbia, he joined thePenn State faculty atUniversity Park, Pennsylvania .In 1968, Kelly was appointed to U.S. government service by the President, serving as Director of Policy Formulation with the
Economic Development Administration of theU.S. Department of Commerce . He was later named Special Assistant to the Administrator of theSmall Business Administration , where he participated in planning and initiating the federal government's first minority economic development program. Kelly joined theFord Foundation in 1969 and served as Officer-in-Charge for the Office of Social Development, the Foundation's largest domestic and civil rights division. In 1975, he was named Officer-in-Charge of a $50 million social investment portfolio where, among other projects, he developed the nation's first private domestic satellite system; a by-product of this project was the creation of the National Captioning Institute to provide closed captioning for the hard of hearing.In 1977, Kelly served as a special consultant to the
U.S. House of Representatives , where he participated in drafting legislation that provided a $1.7 billion guarantee to prevent the insolvency of New York City. Later that year, he was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary of theU.S. Department of Labor . In that position, he successfully directed a government-wide investigation of theTeamsters ' $1.4 billion Central States Pension Fund and led negotiations resulting in the Fund being transferred to private management. After leaving the Labor Department, Kelly returned, at the request of theUnited States Secretary of Labor , to direct efforts that ended a nationwide coal strike.In 1981, Kelly was chosen to serve as the 13th president of Tulane University. In July 1998, he retired as president of the university. During his tenure as President, he was credited with leading Tulane into an unprecedented period of growth; Tulane increased its endowment sevenfold; the quality of the faculty and student body reached new heights; and the campus underwent dramatic changes with the construction of several new buildings and the renovation of many others.
In 1995, he was appointed by President
Bill Clinton to serve on theNational Science Board (NSB), the governing body of theNational Science Foundation , which sponsors scientific and engineering research, develops and sponsors educational programs and helps guide national policy. In 1998, Kelly was elected Chairman of the NSB and re-elected in 2000.Kelly is currently active on the boards of many professional, philanthropic, civic, and corporate organizations, and has received numerous awards, including the Torch of Liberty Award from the
New Orleans Chapter of theAnti-Defamation League and the Caring Citizen for the Humanities Award from the International Council for Caring Communities.Kelly is married to Margaret (Whalen), and they are the parents of four sons: Martin (deceased), Paul, Andrew, and Peter.
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