John Patrick Crecine
Encyclopedia
John Patrick "Pat" Crecine (August 22, 1939 – April 28, 2008) was an American educator. After receiving his early education in Lansing, Michigan
, Michigan
public schools, he earned a bachelor's degree in industrial management, and master's and doctoral degrees in industrial administration from the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now called Tepper School of Business
) at Carnegie Mellon University
. He also spent a year at the Stanford University
School of Business
.
, where he established the country's first graduate program in public policy
in 1968 as the first Director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies, IPPS, (now the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy), while also holding academic appointments in political science
and sociology
. While at Michigan, Crecine established a joint Law and Public Policy program with the Michigan Law School and joint Ph.D. programs with Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Urban and Regional Planning, and Industrial Engineering, each of which were represented in the core curriculum of the IPPS Masters Program.
While at Michigan, he interrupted his teaching several times to serve the federal government as an economist, statistician, and consultant, and to work as an economist with the RAND Corporation. He earned tenure in 1968 and full professorships in Political Science and Sociology in 1970.
, Philosophy, and several research centers in the cognitive sciences, design, and computational linguistics to the College. Following a year as Visiting Fellow Commoner at Cambridge University, he was appointed Senior Vice President and Provost in 1983, with administrative responsibility for Carnegie Mellon's academic, research, and systems development in computing Andrew Project
and computer science and initiated, with Prof. Raj Reddy
, the formation of the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science
(which became the first such college in the country). He was also the founding chief executive officer of the Inter-university Consortium for Educational Computing, an association of research universities. In 1986, he was the first chief administrative officer and oversaw the founding of the University Athletic Association
, an NCAA Division III Conference.
Crecine returned to Carnegie Mellon in the fall of 2006 as Distinguished Service Professor at the Heinz College.
. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Dr. Crecine held a joint appointment as tenured professor in the new School of International Affairs, and the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. During his tenure, he initiated the establishment of three new colleges at Tech: the College of Computing
(the first such college in the country); the Ivan Allen College of Management, Policy, and International Affairs; and the College of Sciences
. He also served as Chairman of the Georgia Tech Athletic Association
and as President of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation
. During his tenure as President, the College of Engineering
's ranking climbed from 14th to 9th in the country, the institution was transformed from a specialized institution to a top-30 national university, SAT scores of Fall entering freshmen for 1992, 1993, and 1994 rose to become the highest of any public research university in the U.S., graduation rates increased by nearly 12 percent, student facilities and housing (including those under construction) were doubled from those of the previous 102 years of the institution’s existence, and sponsored research awards more than doubled.
's leadership, Georgia Tech’s intercollegiate athletic programs thrived with the football team winning the NCAA national championship in 1990, the basketball team going to the NCAA "Final Four
" in 1990 along with several ACC championships, and the baseball team going to the 1994 College World Series. During Dr. Crecine's tenure, Georgia Tech student-athletes had roughly the same graduation rates as other Georgia Tech students.
's Networking and High Performance Computing Panel, which led to the National Research and Education Network Act (the "Gore Bill") and the establishment of the first publicly deployed Internet.
and was an active member of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games before and after Atlanta was chosen as host for the Centennial Games (from 1988 to 1996). Dr. Crecine conceived of and arranged funding for the development of a computerized, virtual reality model of the competition, living, and support facilities to be constructed in support of the Centennial Games as part of Atlanta’s bid package. Georgia Tech was the Olympic Village
during the Centennial Games. As a result, both on-campus housing and student athletic and recreational facilities more than doubled. Georgia Tech hosted the boxing, swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo competitions.
, the College of Management
, the College of Architecture, and the catch-all COSALS, the College of Sciences and Liberal Studies. Crecine proposed the reorganization of the latter two into the College of Computing
, the College of Sciences
, and the Ivan Allen College of Management, Policy, and International Affairs. A significant feature of the proposed reorganization was, in addition to creating degree programs in international affairs and public policy, was allowing faculty in the social sciences and humanities to develop degree programs in addition to traditional service courses and to add programs in the fine and performing arts to the College of Architecture and Design's programs. The proposals generally represented an action plan for creating a "technological university for the 21st Century" and an elaboration of Crecine's April, 1988 Inaugural Address. Although the Institute historian, August Geibelhaus states that "Crecine announced the changes without asking for input, and consequently many faculty members disliked him for his top-down management style", Crecine asked the Faculty Senate in August 1988 to appoint and form committees for each of the three proposed new colleges to comment on the advisability of the proposed reorganization and to suggest improvements in the proposals. Although the Faculty Senate initially resisted the formation of the three committees, they were all formed and chaired by faculty not part of the administration and supported the proposals with modest changes. In June 1989, the administration sent out ballots, and the proposed changes passed, with a slim margin among the academic faculty (52%-48%) and with a wider margin among the research faculty (75%-25%). The proposed reorganization was approved unanimously by the Board of Regents of the State University System of Georgia. The restructuring took effect in January 1990. While Crecine was seen in a poor light by many of the faculty at the time, the changes he made are considered visionary.
(formerly Interland Corporation, 2003–present), Liebert Corporation
(1982–1987), 796 (Pittsburgh Baseball Club Ownership Group, 1982–87), NeXT Computers, Inc.
(1987–1990), HBOC, Inc. (1992–1998), Total eMed (1999–2000), and numerous non-profit and charitable organizations.
Lansing, Michigan
Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
public schools, he earned a bachelor's degree in industrial management, and master's and doctoral degrees in industrial administration from the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (now called Tepper School of Business
Tepper School of Business
The Tepper School of Business is a private business school located on Carnegie Mellon University’s campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.The school consistently ranks highly among the top business schools in the U.S., as well as in a wide range of specializations, such as finance,...
) at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
. He also spent a year at the Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
School of Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business is one of the professional schools of Stanford University, in Stanford, California and is broadly regarded as one of the best business schools in the world.The Stanford GSB offers a general management Master of Business Administration degree, the Sloan...
.
Michigan
Dr. Crecine's academic career began at the University of MichiganUniversity of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, where he established the country's first graduate program in public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
in 1968 as the first Director of the Institute of Public Policy Studies, IPPS, (now the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy), while also holding academic appointments in political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
. While at Michigan, Crecine established a joint Law and Public Policy program with the Michigan Law School and joint Ph.D. programs with Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Urban and Regional Planning, and Industrial Engineering, each of which were represented in the core curriculum of the IPPS Masters Program.
While at Michigan, he interrupted his teaching several times to serve the federal government as an economist, statistician, and consultant, and to work as an economist with the RAND Corporation. He earned tenure in 1968 and full professorships in Political Science and Sociology in 1970.
Carnegie Mellon
In 1975, he became dean Carnegie Mellon's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Political Economy in the School of Urban and Public Affairs (now Heinz College). As Dean he conceived of and implemented a core curriculum, described by the Education Editor of the New York Times as "the most innovative in America," and added departments of Statistics, Social and Decision SciencesSocial and Decision Sciences
Social and Decision Sciences, informally known as SDS, is an interdisciplinary academic department within the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University headquartered in Porter Hall in Pittsburgh, PA and led by Department Head John H...
, Philosophy, and several research centers in the cognitive sciences, design, and computational linguistics to the College. Following a year as Visiting Fellow Commoner at Cambridge University, he was appointed Senior Vice President and Provost in 1983, with administrative responsibility for Carnegie Mellon's academic, research, and systems development in computing Andrew Project
Andrew Project
The Andrew Project was a distributed computing environment developed at Carnegie Mellon University beginning in 1982. It was an ambitious project for its time and resulted in an unprecedentedly vast and accessible university computing infrastructure....
and computer science and initiated, with Prof. Raj Reddy
Raj Reddy
Dabbala Rajagopal "Raj" Reddy , a Turing Award winner, is one of the early pioneers in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and has served on the faculty of Stanford and Carnegie Mellon University for over 40 years. He was the founding Director of the Robotics Institute at CMU...
, the formation of the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science
The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA is a leading private school for computer science established in 1965. It has been consistently ranked among the top computer science programs over the decades. U.S...
(which became the first such college in the country). He was also the founding chief executive officer of the Inter-university Consortium for Educational Computing, an association of research universities. In 1986, he was the first chief administrative officer and oversaw the founding of the University Athletic Association
University Athletic Association
The University Athletic Association is an American athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. Member teams are located in Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York...
, an NCAA Division III Conference.
Crecine returned to Carnegie Mellon in the fall of 2006 as Distinguished Service Professor at the Heinz College.
Georgia Tech
In 1987, Dr. Crecine became the ninth president of the Georgia Institute of TechnologyGeorgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Dr. Crecine held a joint appointment as tenured professor in the new School of International Affairs, and the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. During his tenure, he initiated the establishment of three new colleges at Tech: the College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing
The College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology has roots stretching back to an Information Science degree established in 1964. In 1988, Georgia Tech president John Patrick Crecine elevated the School of Information and Computer Science to become the College of Computing, making...
(the first such college in the country); the Ivan Allen College of Management, Policy, and International Affairs; and the College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences
The College of Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the six colleges in the institute.-History:Until 1990, there was no independent college for the sciences. Before then, there had been three colleges: the College of Engineering, the College of Engineering, and COSALS, the...
. He also served as Chairman of the Georgia Tech Athletic Association
Georgia Tech Athletic Association
The Georgia Tech Athletic Association is a non-profit organization responsible for maintaining the intercollegiate athletic program at Georgia Tech. The Athletic Association is overseen by the Georgia Tech Athletic Board....
and as President of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
The Georgia Tech Research Corporation is an organization that supports research and technological development at Georgia Tech. It was founded in 1937 as the Industrial Development Council to be a contract organization for the Engineering Experiment Station...
. During his tenure as President, the College of Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Engineering
The College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technologyprovides formal education and research in more than 10 fields of engineering, including:...
's ranking climbed from 14th to 9th in the country, the institution was transformed from a specialized institution to a top-30 national university, SAT scores of Fall entering freshmen for 1992, 1993, and 1994 rose to become the highest of any public research university in the U.S., graduation rates increased by nearly 12 percent, student facilities and housing (including those under construction) were doubled from those of the previous 102 years of the institution’s existence, and sponsored research awards more than doubled.
Minorities
During Crecine's tenure at Georgia Tech, African American student enrollment doubled at undergraduate and graduate levels, academic performance at the undergraduate level significantly exceeded majority student performance, with approximately 40% of freshman African American students making the Dean's list, with most African Amecian students enrolling in demanding engineering programs. Graduate Ph.D. production for minority students in engineering now approached that of the rest of the nation, combined. Numbers of tenure-track minority faculty tripled and female faculty doubled.Athletics
During Crecine's tenure and under Athletic Director Homer RiceHomer Rice
Homer Rice was a college athletic director and football coach. From 1967 to 1968, he served as the head football coach at Cincinnati, where he compiled an 8-10-1 record. From 1976 to 1977, he coached at Rice, where he compiled a 4-18 record...
's leadership, Georgia Tech’s intercollegiate athletic programs thrived with the football team winning the NCAA national championship in 1990, the basketball team going to the NCAA "Final Four
Final four
Final Four isa sports term that is commonly applied to the last four teams remaining in a playoff tournament, most notably NCAA Division I college basketball tournaments. The term usually refers to the four teams who compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final round...
" in 1990 along with several ACC championships, and the baseball team going to the 1994 College World Series. During Dr. Crecine's tenure, Georgia Tech student-athletes had roughly the same graduation rates as other Georgia Tech students.
Development of the Internet
During 1989-92, he chaired the Office of Technology AssessmentOffice of Technology Assessment
The Office of Technology Assessment was an office of the United States Congress from 1972 to 1995. OTA's purpose was to provide Congressional members and committees with objective and authoritative analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues of the late 20th century, i.e. technology...
's Networking and High Performance Computing Panel, which led to the National Research and Education Network Act (the "Gore Bill") and the establishment of the first publicly deployed Internet.
Olympics
In November 1987, Dr. Crecine, acting on behalf of Georgia Tech, volunteered to help Atlanta become the host city for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
and was an active member of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games before and after Atlanta was chosen as host for the Centennial Games (from 1988 to 1996). Dr. Crecine conceived of and arranged funding for the development of a computerized, virtual reality model of the competition, living, and support facilities to be constructed in support of the Centennial Games as part of Atlanta’s bid package. Georgia Tech was the Olympic Village
Olympic Village
An Olympic Village is an accommodation centre built for an Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, athletic trainers, and other staff. Since the Munich Massacre at the 1972...
during the Centennial Games. As a result, both on-campus housing and student athletic and recreational facilities more than doubled. Georgia Tech hosted the boxing, swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo competitions.
Reorganization
In 1988, Crecine proposed a controversial restructuring of the university. The Institute at that point had four colleges: the College of EngineeringGeorgia Institute of Technology College of Engineering
The College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technologyprovides formal education and research in more than 10 fields of engineering, including:...
, the College of Management
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Management
The College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology was established in 1934, and is consistently ranked in the top 30 management programs in the nation. It draws its distinction from its roots in a world-renowned technical university....
, the College of Architecture, and the catch-all COSALS, the College of Sciences and Liberal Studies. Crecine proposed the reorganization of the latter two into the College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing
The College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology has roots stretching back to an Information Science degree established in 1964. In 1988, Georgia Tech president John Patrick Crecine elevated the School of Information and Computer Science to become the College of Computing, making...
, the College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences
The College of Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the six colleges in the institute.-History:Until 1990, there was no independent college for the sciences. Before then, there had been three colleges: the College of Engineering, the College of Engineering, and COSALS, the...
, and the Ivan Allen College of Management, Policy, and International Affairs. A significant feature of the proposed reorganization was, in addition to creating degree programs in international affairs and public policy, was allowing faculty in the social sciences and humanities to develop degree programs in addition to traditional service courses and to add programs in the fine and performing arts to the College of Architecture and Design's programs. The proposals generally represented an action plan for creating a "technological university for the 21st Century" and an elaboration of Crecine's April, 1988 Inaugural Address. Although the Institute historian, August Geibelhaus states that "Crecine announced the changes without asking for input, and consequently many faculty members disliked him for his top-down management style", Crecine asked the Faculty Senate in August 1988 to appoint and form committees for each of the three proposed new colleges to comment on the advisability of the proposed reorganization and to suggest improvements in the proposals. Although the Faculty Senate initially resisted the formation of the three committees, they were all formed and chaired by faculty not part of the administration and supported the proposals with modest changes. In June 1989, the administration sent out ballots, and the proposed changes passed, with a slim margin among the academic faculty (52%-48%) and with a wider margin among the research faculty (75%-25%). The proposed reorganization was approved unanimously by the Board of Regents of the State University System of Georgia. The restructuring took effect in January 1990. While Crecine was seen in a poor light by many of the faculty at the time, the changes he made are considered visionary.
Post-academic career
Dr. Crecine’s resignation as President of Georgia Tech took effect in July 1994. Dr. Crecine was associated with several start-up companies involved in Information Technology, ecommerce, and the internet and at the time of his death was CEO of B.P.T., Inc. a consulting firm. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of several public companies: Intermet Corporation (1993–2005), Web.comWeb.com
Web.com, Inc , formerly Interland , was a provider of websites and web services to small businesses and consumers, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Web.com's services included do-it-yourself and professional website design, web hosting, e-commerce, web marketing, and e-mail...
(formerly Interland Corporation, 2003–present), Liebert Corporation
Liebert (company)
Liebert Corporation, a business of the Emerson Network Power platform of Emerson Electric, is a global manufacturer of power, precision cooling and infrastructure management systems for main-frame computer, server racks, and critical process systems...
(1982–1987), 796 (Pittsburgh Baseball Club Ownership Group, 1982–87), NeXT Computers, Inc.
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
(1987–1990), HBOC, Inc. (1992–1998), Total eMed (1999–2000), and numerous non-profit and charitable organizations.