John W. Lederle, age 94, born in Royal Oak, Michigan in 1912, president of the University of Massachusetts, 1960–1970, died February 13, 2007. His wife of almost 69 years, Angie, died March 4th, both in Naples, Florida, where they lived in retirement. They leave a daughter, Pamela Marro, and a son, Thomas.
John Lederle was appointed president of the University of Massachusetts in 1960, coming from the University of Michigan, where he had been director of the Institute of Public Administration. During his presidency, the campus student population in Amherst tripled and the operating budget and number of books in the library quadrupled. The number of faculty grew from 366 to 1,157. Nearly 50 major buildings were begun or completed on campus. The number of graduate students increased by nearly 300%. The UMass Medical School was established in Worcester and a Boston UMass campus was created. During his presidency the number of doctoral programs grew from 16 to 44, and a number of institutes and programs were established, including: Polymer Research Institute, Labor Relations and Research Center, Water Resources Research Center, Committee for the Collegiate Education of Black Students, overseas programs in England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, and a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. In sum, this period inaugurated remarkable growth in the size and quality of the University.
One of President Lederle's important achievements was enactment of a “fiscal autonomy” law in 1962, giving the University critically needed control over its own spending. The state Senate president once said that John Lederle had taken more money out of the state treasury than any other man in history—a jibe that delighted John.
After his retirement as president of the University of Massachusetts, he served in the political science department in the Joseph B. Ely Chair in Government, until 1982. Thoroughly responsible as always, he was a good colleague and fine teacher of public administration and Canadian government. John Lederle's excellence of character and deep professional commitment made easy his return from the presidency to the professoriate, where we, his colleagues, found him always a worthy and genial partner in our common endeavors. So sensitive was he to the possibility that bad publicity would come to the department and the University if he were to be awarded any salary increases after returning to the professoriate, that he refused to be considered for any merit raises even though he fully met all his duties and responsibilities as a full-time member of the faculty.
John Lederle earned his Bachelor's, Master's, law degree, and Ph.D. (1942) from the University of Michigan, whose excellence continued to serve him as a standard. He was a lawyer, admitted to the Michigan bar in 1936 and the U.S. Supreme Court bar in 1947. He worked with a Detroit law firm, 1936–1940. He taught and was an assistant dean at Brown University, 1941–1944, then returned to the University of Michigan until 1960, when he assumed the University of Massachusetts presidency.
He was an active civic participant, a member of: the Board of Trustees of the Clarke School for the Deaf, the Executive Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the Board of Trustees of Hampshire College, the Massachusetts Board of Regional Community Colleges, the Advisory Commission of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, and the New England Board of Higher Education.
He served as a consultant to: the U.S. Senate Campaign Expenditures Committee, 1944–1946; the U.S. House of Representatives Special Committee on Campaign Expenditures, 1950; and the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules, 1952. He was a member of the Special Commission on Non-Profit Hospital and Medical Services Corporations and the Rising Cost of Hospital and Medical Care to the Public, 1962–1964.
He was also actively involved with local and state government. He was staff attorney, Michigan Municipal League, 1945–1948, and general counsel, 1948–1951; director, Institute of Public Administration at the University of Michigan, 1950–1960; organizer and first director of the Institute of Public Administration at the University of the Philippines, 1952–1953; Michigan state controller and chairman of the Michigan Commission on Interstate Cooperation, 1953–1954; secretary of the Michigan Governor's Committee on Intergovernmental Relations, 1954–1955; chairman of the National Conference of Directors of Bureaus of Government Research, 1958–1961; and chairman of the Massachusetts Governor's Committee on Local Government and Management Capacity, 1976–1978.
He was a member of the APSA Executive Council, 1949–1951, and of the American Society for Public Administration Executive Council, 1949–1951. He was chairman, conference of directors of University Bureaus of Governmental Research, 1958–1961. He published articles on higher education and on national, state, and local governmental politics and administration. President Lederle received honorary doctorates from Amherst College, Hokkaido University, Northeastern University, Boston University, Holy Cross College, and Lowell State College. He received an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1970, and the graduate research center building on campus was named for him in 1983.
John wished to be cremated, with some of his ashes spread on the campus. That speaks to the man's loyalty to a university he served so well.
