Harold Wechsler
Professor of Jewish Education and Educational History
Phone: 212-992-9423
Email: hw29@nyu.edu
- Humanities and Social Sciences
- Administration Leadership and Technology
- Education and Jewish Studies
- History of Education
- Higher Education Administration
Harold Wechsler co-directs NYU's Ph.D. program in Education and Jewish Studies. He has published widely on access, governance, business education, and the formation of curriculum and disciplines in American higher education. His books include: Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century (with Paul Ritterband), Access to Success in the Urban High School: The Middle College Movement, The Transfer Challenge, and The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America, 1870-1970. He also edits the annual Almanac of Higher Education for the National Education Association and coedits the ASHE Reader on the History of Higher Education (with Linda Eisenmann and Lester Goodchild).
Wechsler formerly chaired the higher education programs at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. He was also editor of higher education publications for the National Education Association. Sponsored by a major Spencer Foundation grant, Wechsler currently studies the history of minority access to American higher education. The Ford Foundation and Littauer Foundation sponsored previous projects.
He is the president of the History of Education Society, a member of the executive committee of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, and the winner of the Greatest Mets Fan competition (1969).
Degrees Held
- A.B.
Columbia College, New York City
1967
History - M.A.
Columbia University
1969
Department of History - Ph.D.
Columbia University
1974
Department of History
Publications
- Access to Success in the Urban High School: The Middle College Movement (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001), (ISBN: 0807740527; eBook ISBN: 0585440948).
- NEA Almanac of Higher Education, editor, 1994-present.
- Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1994), (with Paul Ritterband), (ISBN: 0253350395).
- The Transfer Challenge: Removing Barriers; Maintaining Commitment: A Handbook for Four-Year Colleges (Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges, 1989), (ISBN: 0911696466).
- The History of Higher Education, third edition (Needham Heights, Mass.: Pearson Publishing, , 2007), (edited with Linda Eisenmann and Lester L. Goodchild)
- The New Look: The Ford Foundation and the Revolution in Business Education (Los Angeles: Graduate Management Admissions Council, 1988) (with Steven L. Schlossman and Michael W. Sedlak).
- The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America 1870-1970 (New York: John Wiley-Interscience, 1977), ISBN: 0471924415.