Stephen J. Friedman – A Passionate Advocate for Education

Now in his 80s, Stephen J. Friedman represents the kind of accomplished American that the mid-20th century produced in quantity and that biographer Walter Isaacson profiled in his 1986 book The Wise Men: those who divide their talents between the private and public sectors, always accepting challenging work with the ultimate goal of serving their country. Friedman served as president of Pace University during a period of crisis for the school, and at a time in his life when most of his peers had long since retired. From the time he accepted the presidency in 2007 at age 69 up until his retirement 10 years later, he devoted his attention to the welfare of the Pace community and its legacy. He succeeded in returning it to stability and securing its future.

The transformation of a university

Under Friedman’s leadership, Pace increased its core student enrollment and full-time faculty base while continuing to offer low-income and underserved students access to a high-quality education. Also during his tenure, the university opened the Pace School of Performing Arts and developed new programs of study, putting increasing emphasis on the value of international study and internships abroad. While guiding Pace to a sound financial foundation, Friedman notably spearheaded a long-range plan to renovate the school’s major campuses. He also accepted on Pace’s behalf the largest philanthropic gift in the school’s history. Today, Pace is the No. 1 private undergraduate institution in the country, as ranked by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights.

A champion of liberal arts and career preparation

As a vocal advocate for the necessity of a broad education, Friedman also kept his focus on sustaining Pace’s liberal arts departments and its role in preparing the next generations of physicians, attorneys, scientists, and entrepreneurs. This is the type of education that developed well-rounded, public-minded people, like these three of the six “Wise Men” of Isaacson’s book: Dean Acheson, United States Secretary of State under President Harry Truman and advisor to subsequent presidents; George Kennan, a leading public intellectual and an architect of Acheson’s Cold War policy; and Averell Harriman, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s special envoy to Europe during World War II. And it is the type of education that produced Stephen J. Friedman.

An accomplished attorney and public servant

Born in 1938, Friedman grew up in Brooklyn and graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1959. He went on to earn his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1962. As a Harvard student, he served as editor of the Harvard Law Review and received the Sears Prize, which recognizes just four students per year for achieving the highest averages in academic work. He went on to clerk for US Supreme Court Associate Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., one of the nation’s most eloquent champions of the Bill of Rights. In 1967 he edited “An Affair with Freedom,” a published collection of Brennan’s legal opinions and speeches drawn from his first 10 years on the high court. The book remains widely available. As a young attorney, Friedman acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of securities law, corporate law, markets, and multiple other aspects of law and business. He is a former senior partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP, and former co-chair of the firm’s corporate department. He also has served as general counsel and executive vice president of the E. F. Hutton Group, Inc., and the Equitable Companies Incorporated. As a public servant, he was the commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Capital Markets in the US Treasury Department.

Academia finds an impassioned new advocate

Before accepting the position of president of Pace University, Friedman served as dean of the school’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law. As he began his duties at age 66, Friedman observed that he had become a “born-again academic.” Three years later, he suddenly found himself asked to take the even bigger step of serving as the school’s president in a time of decreasing enrollment and multiple other large-scale challenges—not least of them the emerging global financial crisis. At a 2018 Pace event in his honor, Friedman noted that one of his central goals in life is to learn new things while helping other people become the best they can be. He left his position of leadership at the university proud of its role in the transformation of students’ lives. In a moving tribute video, university leaders noted that his “intelligence, talent, and spirit of service” has left an indelible mark on the school.

A vibrant post-retirement life

Stephen Friedman has not slowed in his passion for making positive changes happen in the world. The year of his retirement from Pace, he opened his own consulting and coaching business, Open Mind Associates, LLC. He established the firm with a focus on issues affecting universities and nonprofits, and it has since grown into a top strategic and leadership development organization. He continues to author informative articles on multiple aspects of law, business, public policy, and excellence in leadership, all shared on the firm’s website.