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George Erik Rupp | |
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President of the International Rescue Committee | |
In office 2003–2013 | |
Preceded by | Reynold Levy |
Succeeded by | David Miliband |
18th President of Columbia University | |
In office 1993–2002 | |
Preceded by | Michael I. Sovern |
Succeeded by | Lee Bollinger |
5th President of Rice University | |
In office 1985–1993 | |
Preceded by | Norman Hackerman |
Succeeded by | S. Malcolm Gillis |
Personal details | |
Born | Summit,New Jersey | September 22,1942
Spouse | Nancy Rupp |
Education | Princeton University (BA) Yale University (BDiv) Harvard University (PhD) |
Academic background | |
Thesis | The cross and "unbelief":Christology in the context of religious pluralism (1972) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Theology |
Institutions | |
George Erik Rupp (born September 22, 1942) [1] is an American educator and theologian, who served successively as president of Rice University, Columbia University, and the International Rescue Committee.
Rupp was born in Summit, New Jersey, the son of German immigrant parents, and was raised in Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey. [1] He studied at the University of Munich in Germany before graduating from Princeton University with an A.B. in English in 1964 after completing a senior thesis titled "A Theatre of Ideas: Studies in Mid-Twentieth Century German and English Drama." [2] He then received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School and, after studying for a year in Sri Lanka, a Ph.D. in religion from Harvard University. [3] He is an ordained Presbyterian minister, but mostly retired from preaching by the mid-1980s. [1]
He was faculty fellow in religion and then Vice Chancellor of Johnston College in the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. Rupp left Redlands to return to Harvard as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Theology in the Divinity School. He left Harvard to become Professor of Humanistic Studies and Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay in 1977, where he remained until 1979.
Rupp was the John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity and dean of the Harvard Divinity School from 1979 to 1985. Under his leadership, the curriculum of the school was revised to address more directly the pluralistic character of contemporary religious life. Further developments included new programs in women's studies and religion, Jewish-Christian relations, and religion and medicine.
He was President of Rice University from 1985 to 1993, where in the course of his eight years applications for admission almost tripled, federal research support more than doubled, and the value of the Rice endowment increased by more than $500 million to $1.25 billion.
He became president of Columbia in 1993. During his nine-year tenure, he focused on enhancing undergraduate education, on strengthening the relationship of the campus to surrounding communities and New York City as a whole, and on increasing the university's international orientation. At the same time, he completed both a financial restructuring of the university and a $2.84 billion fundraising campaign that achieved eight successive records in dollars raised.
As the IRC's chief executive officer from 2003 to 2013, Dr. Rupp oversaw the agency's relief and rehabilitation operations in 25 countries and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States. In addition, he led the IRC's advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C., Geneva, Brussels, and other capitals on behalf of the world's most vulnerable people. His responsibilities regularly took him to IRC program sites in Africa, Asia, and Europe. During his time as president of the IRC, the budget tripled in size.
On March 26, 2013, The Daily Mirror reported that former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband would be stepping down from the UK Parliament to succeed Rupp as CEO of the IRC. [4]
In July 2013, Rupp became a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and in April 2015 he was elected chair of the International Baccalaureate Organization. He has remained actively involved with Columbia University in his post-presidency as a distinguished visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life; as of 2015, he also served as an adjunct professor of comparative religion, public health, and international affairs. [5]
He is the author numerous articles, opinion pieces, and book chapters and also of seven books:
George and his wife Nancy are the parents of two adult daughters who are teaching and writing, one with scholarly expertise in East Asia and the other a specialist in African studies, and are the grandparents of six children: four boys and two girls.
Rupp was chosen as Rice University's commencement speaker for 2008. [6]
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1942 after amalgamating with the similar Emergency Rescue Committee, the IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution, or natural disaster. The IRC is currently working in about 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities where it resettles refugees and helps them become self-sufficient. It focuses mainly on health, education, economic wellbeing, power, and safety.
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University. Columbia University lists UTS among its affiliate schools, alongside Barnard College and Teachers College. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's constituent faculty of theology. In 1964, UTS also established an affiliation with the neighboring Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Despite its affiliation with Columbia University, UTS is an independent institution with its own administration and Board of Trustees. UTS confers the following degrees: Master of Divinity (MDiv), Master of Divinity & Social Work dual degree (MDSW), Master of Arts in religion (MAR), Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ), Master of Sacred Theology (STM), Doctor of Ministry (DMin), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, government, and service. It also caters to students from other Harvard schools that are interested in the former field. HDS is among a small group of university-based, non-denominational divinity schools in the United States.
John Harwood Hick was an English-born philosopher of religion and theologian who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism.
George McLeod Newlands is a Scottish theologian widely published in the fields of modern systematic theology, Christology, emancipatory theology, and the history of Christian thought. He is Emeritus Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, and served as Chair of the Theology, Divinity & Religious Studies panel of the UK's 2008 Research Assessment Exercise and as President of the Society for the Study of Theology for 2013–14.
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Hans Wilhelm Frei was an American biblical scholar and theologian who is best known for work on biblical hermeneutics. Frei's work played a major role in the development of postliberal theology. His best-known and most influential work is his 1974 book, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, which examined the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century biblical hermeneutics in England and Germany. Frei spent much of his career teaching at Yale Divinity School.
David W. Leebron is an American legal scholar who served as the 7th President of Rice University from 2004 to 2022. He was a professor and dean of Columbia Law School, until he was named president of Rice University on July 1, 2004. In 2024, he was named the new president and CEO of Texas 2036.
Ronald Frank Thiemann was an American political theologian and Benjamin Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. His research in large part focused on the role of religion in public life. He was dean of Harvard Divinity School from 1986 to 1998.
Michael Welker is a German Protestant theologian and a senior professor of Systematic Theology (Dogmatics).
David Falconer Wells is Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books in which his evangelical theology engages with the modern world. He has taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has served as the Academic Dean at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Charlotte, North Carolina campus.
David Wright Miliband is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Shields in North East England from 2001 to 2013. He and his brother, Ed, were the first siblings to sit in the Cabinet simultaneously since Edward, Lord Stanley and Oliver Stanley in 1938. He was a candidate for Labour Party leadership in 2010, following the departure of Gordon Brown, but was defeated by his brother and subsequently left politics.
Roger Haight is an American Jesuit theologian and former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. His experiences with censorship have led to widespread debate over how to handle controversial ideas in the Catholic church today.
The International Relations Council (IRC) is a non-profit non-partisan educational organization in Kansas City, Missouri, and a member of the World Affairs Councils of America. As an educational nonprofit, the IRC works in partnership with a range of businesses, universities, community organizations, K-12 schools, and other interested individuals to grow a global perspective and find international connections within the Greater Kansas City metropolitan area. The IRC works to foster interest in an understanding of international affairs among the citizens of Kansas City through the development of various programs and events. As a membership organization, the IRC welcomes individuals and families, businesses, universities, and other organizations to join as IRC members in order to help sustain global-affairs education in the Kansas City community and receive various benefits.
Christian fascism is a far-right political ideology that denotes an intersection between fascism and Christianity. It is sometimes referred to as "Christofascism", a neologism which was coined in 1970 by the liberation theologian Dorothee Sölle.
Mary McInnis Boies is an American attorney working as counsel to Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, where she specializes in antitrust and corporate commercial litigation. Mrs. Boies was a founding partner of the American law firm Boies & McInnis LLP. The law firm, established in 1988, specialized in antitrust and corporate commercial litigation.
William Albert Graham Jr. is an American scholar of Islamic studies and the history of religion, the Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, emeritus, and University Distinguished Service Professor, emeritus, at Harvard University.
George W. Stroup is J.B. Green Professor Emeritus of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He is married to Dr. Donna Fox Stroup, a mathematical statistician.
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen is a Finnish theologian. He is Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is an ordained Lutheran minister and an expert on Pentecostal-Charismatic theologies.
Daniel L. Overmyer was a Canadian historian of religion and academic who was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Asian Studies and the Centre for Chinese Research at the University of British Columbia. Overmyer was a pioneer in the study of Chinese popular thought, religion, and culture; popular religious sects of the late traditional and modern periods and their texts; and local rituals and beliefs practiced in villages, especially North China.
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