Thomas J. Schwarz

Biography 

Thomas J. Schwarz, the fifth President of Purchase College, heads a highly selective public college of more than 4,200 students that combines a superior liberal arts and sciences education with professional, conservatory training in the visual and performing arts on one campus. Students from more than 45 states and 30 countries attend classes in the 25-building campus on 500 acres in Westchester, located 35 minutes from Manhattan.
 
The campus houses The Performing Arts Center, a four-theater complex considered one of the finest of its kind on the East Coast, which presents more than 100 professional and numerous student performances annually. The Neuberger Museum of Art, the tenth largest university museum in the country, presents 12–16 temporary exhibitions each year in addition to displays from the permanent collection. Both provide the campus and the wider community with a rich concentration of the arts and contribute directly to the academic programs.
 
The Princeton Review ranks Purchase among the nation’s Best 366 Colleges in its latest edition. Purchase is also included in America’s Best 100 College Buys, the Unofficial Biased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges and the Princeton Review’s Best Northeastern Regional Colleges.
 
Since he joined Purchase in 2002, President Schwarz has worked enthusiastically with students, faculty, and staff to achieve academic excellence and has encouraged interdisciplinary study and collaboration. He has improved communication and administrative leadership, and has attracted new resources for the institution. During his tenure the endowment has increased and the campus has added new residences and a new Student Services building. The central campus plaza is being revitalized and students now have a new student center. Foreign programs have been expanded to Turkey, China, Singapore, and Mexico, in addition to Spain, Italy, and France.

Purchase offers four Learning Community programs for incoming freshmen in which they take courses designed around a specific theme and receive special attention from faculty, staff, and peer mentors who help them excel and join a community that lasts throughout their undergraduate years. Grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Office of Women of the U.S. Department of Justice, among others, support academic and research programs.

The 15,000-plus alumni of the College are major contributors to education, business, the arts and entertainment. Graduates include Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Award winners, research scientists, prominent journalists, academics, teachers, CEOs of international corporations, and Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Genius Award winners.
 
Students are motivated by the conviction that artists and scholars are indispensable both to each other and to an enlightened society. They are encouraged to acquire the skills and knowledge that build the foundation of a productive career and a meaningful life.
 
Prior to Purchase, President Schwarz had a distinguished career as a partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he was National Practice Leader of the Litigation Department. He was also the founding partner of the firm’s Committee on Diversity. 
 
He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Hamilton College and a law degree, cum laude, from Fordham Law School, where he was an editor of The Fordham Law Review.
 
Among his other accomplishments, he served as mayor of the village of Ocean Beach in Suffolk County from 1978 to 1987, Special Counsel to the New York State Commission on Government Integrity 1987-1991, was appointed by the Chief Judge to the Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections, was Counsel to the Governor’s Judicial Screening Committee and a member of the Task Force on Minority Representation on the Bench. The Legal Aid Society presented him with its Pro Bono Award in 1998. He is a recipient of the Leonard Manning Award from the Fordham University Alumni Association Law Review, which recognizes a distinguished alumnus for significant career achievements.

Schwarz joined the Hamilton College Board of Trustees in 1987. As chairman of the Hamilton planning committee, he oversaw completion of the first long-term plan in the college’s 200-year history. Later in 1999, he served as Acting President at Hamilton where he worked with a wide array of constituencies to improve administrative and operational functions and to secure increased private and grant revenues.
 
President Schwarz is presently a board member of Hamilton College, the New York State Preservation League, the Riverside Park Fund and the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall Advisory Council; and was recently appointed by Governor Spitzer to the New York State Commission on Higher Education. He has two children.