Touro College sets succession plan

By jewish star staff writer

The nation’s oldest serving college president has announced his successor but said he has no plan to retire just yet.

Dr. Bernard Lander, 94, president of Touro College, has named Dr. Alan Kaddish as Senior Provost and Chief Operating Officer. He is to become president when Lander takes on a future role as chancellor. Prior to joining Touro, Kaddish was the senior associate chief of the cardiology division at Northwestern University and the director of the cardiovascular division.

Lander founded Touro College in 1971 and maintains a schedule of eight-and-a-half-hour days. He was candid about how long he intends to continue in his present role.

“Life will determine it,” Lander told the Jewish Star in a joint conversation with Kaddish. “As long as I live, I work.”

Slightly hard of hearing, Lander explained that he selected Kaddish based on Touro’s plan to purchase the New York Medical School, one of the oldest and largest private medical schools in the country. It will make a sizable addition to the network of 29 schools Touro already operates in four states and overseas, including two colleges of pharmacy and three colleges of osteopathic medicine.

“He’s a logical man to develop that process,” Lander explained about Kaddish.

In 1971, at the age of 55, Lander, a former sociology professor, began Touro with a class of thirty-five students in rented space in Midtown. Since then, the school has expanded to over 17,000 students in its undergraduate, graduate and professional programs and Lander is still full of ideas about how to continue to expand.

“An international school for students of all types and all qualities and religious tradition,” he proposed. “There is a large interest and there are thousands of young men on March of the Living and Birthright. They get excited about Jewish life and then they return to America and go on to their regular lives.”

One of Lander’s proudest achievements has been to provide a college education for religious Jews.

“We have made it kosher for Jewish yeshiva boys to continue college and Chasidim to start,” he said.

Kaddish, a Yeshiva University graduate, is Orthodox like Lander.

“I have a lifelong commitment to Torah and learning and I hope that experience and my desire to promulgate Jewish life throughout the world will help me [reach] these goals,” Kaddish explained.

He said that he would continue the goal of  “providing a quality education for Jews and non-Jews alike, but with a Jewish focus in mind, and education for all.”

Kaddish will also need to begin a substantial fundraising effort for the medical school, something that Touro previously has not had to do.

Looking back, Lander has few regrets.

“This is life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, you move forward. You always look ahead.”

By Jewish Star Staff Writer

Issue of September 25, 2009/ 7 Tishrei 5770

The nation’s oldest serving college president has announced his successor but said he has no plan to retire just yet.

  Dr. Bernard Lander, 94, president of Touro College, has named Dr. Alan Kadish as Senior Provost and Chief Operating Officer. He is to become president when Lander takes on a future role as chancellor. Prior to joining Touro, Kadish was the senior associate chief of the cardiology division at Northwestern University and the director of the cardiovascular division.

Lander founded Touro College in 1971 and maintains a schedule of eight-and-a-half-hour days. He was candid about how long he intends to continue in his present role.

“Life will determine it,” Lander told the Jewish Star in a joint conversation with Kadish. “As long as I live, I work.”

Slightly hard of hearing, Lander explained that he selected Kadish based on Touro’s plan to purchase the New York Medical School, one of the oldest and largest private medical schools in the country. It will make a sizable addition to the network of 29 schools Touro already operates in four states and overseas, including two colleges of pharmacy and three colleges of osteopathic medicine.

“He’s a logical man to develop that process,” Lander explained about Kadish.

In 1971, at the age of 55, Lander, a former sociology professor, began Touro with a class of thirty-five students in a building in Midtown. Since then, the school has expanded to over 17,000 students in its undergraduate, graduate and professional programs and Lander is still full of ideas about how to continue to expand.

“An international school for students of all types and all qualities and religious tradition,” he proposed. “There is a large interest and there are thousands of young men on March of the Living and Birthright. They get excited about Jewish life and then they return to America and go on to their regular lives.”

One of Lander’s proudest achievements has been to provide a college education for religious Jews.

“We have made it kosher for Jewish yeshiva boys to continue college and Chasidim to start,” he said.

Kadish, a Yeshiva University graduate, is Orthodox like Lander.

“I have a lifelong commitment to Torah and learning and I hope that experience and my desire to promulgate Jewish life throughout the world will help me [reach] these goals,” Kadish explained.

He said that he would continue the goal of  “providing a quality education for Jews and non-Jews alike, but with a Jewish focus in mind, and education for all.”

Kadish will also need to begin a substantial fundraising effort for the medical school, something that Touro previously has not had to do.

Looking back, Lander has few regrets.

“This is life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, you move forward. You always look ahead.”