OUTSTANDING EDUCATORS OF THE YEAR 2013 PRESENTER
Jennifer Raab, J.D.
President, Hunter College
Jennifer J. Raab is the 13th President of Hunter College, the largest college of the City University of New York. Her role includes championing professors and students who have to overcome hardships to achieve success. Cases in point: Professor Robert Greenberg, Senior Associate Dean of The School of Arts and Sciences who is blind and Patrick Anderson, a music major who is a paralympic star.
Since assuming the presidency in 2001, she has led a successful effort to enlarge the faculty and recruit distinguished professors and artists. Hunter has won new levels of government awards, private grants and philanthropic contributions and launched the first capital campaign in its history. Major changes include the renovation and reopening of the historic Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt House, which is now the Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The reforms and improvements are reflected in Hunter’s rising national standing. The Princeton Review has ranked it among the Top 10 “Best Value” public colleges in the nation for three consecutive years, and 7th among the Top 10 public regional universities in the North by U.S. News & World Report’s in 2012.
President Raab’s role as an educational leader continues her long career in public service, from lawyer to political campaigner adviser to government official. Her career in government began in 1979 when she became special projects manager for the South Bronx Development Organization, an agency that played a critical role in the renewal of one of the city’s most distressed areas, and she was later named director of public affairs for the New York City Planning Commission.
President Raab went on to become a litigator at two of the nation’s most prestigious law firms where she quickly earned a reputation as a strong but fair advocate and was subsequently appointed Chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. She was known for her effective and innovative leadership of the agency that protects and preserves the city’s historic structures and architectural heritage. She has been honored by many New York and national organizations, including United Way and the League of Women Voters of New York. She was also named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in New York” in 2009 and 2011 Crain’s New York Business Arroyo Foundation and the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute.
Long active in civic and national affairs, President Raab is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Board of Directors of The After School Corporation and on the Steering Committee of the Association for a Better New York. She was appointed a member of the 2004-05 New York City Charter Revision Commission by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
A graduate of Hunter College High School, President Raab is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Cornell University, holds a Master in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton and received her law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School.
President Raab is the 2012 recipient of Albany Law School’s Miriam M. Netter Award, which is awarded annually to the School’s Kate Stoneman Day keynote speaker, in honor of Stoneman’s lifelong commitment to actively seeking change and expanding opportunities for women. #
