Rupp, George

During his nine-year tenure as president of Columbia University, Dr. Rupp focused on enhancing undergraduate education, on strengthening the relationship of the campus to surrounding communities and New York City as a whole, and on increasing the university’s international orientation. At the same time, he completed both a financial restructuring of the university and a $2.84 billion fund-raising campaign that achieved eight successive records in dollars raised.

Prior to his time at Columbia, Dr. Rupp served as president of Rice University, where in the course of his eight years applications for admission almost tripled, federal research support more than doubled, and the value of the Rice endowment increased by more than $500 million to $1.25 billion.

Before going to Rice, Dr. Rupp was the John Lord O’Brian Professor of Divinity and dean of the Harvard Divinity School. Under his leadership, the curriculum of the school was revised to address more directly the pluralistic character of contemporary religious life. Further developments included new programs in women’s studies and religion, Jewish-Christian relations, and religion and medicine.

Born in New Jersey of immigrant parents, Dr. Rupp has studied and conducted research for extended periods in both Europe and Asia. He studied in Germany before he was awarded an A.B. from Princeton University in 1964, a B.D. from Yale Divinity School in 1967, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1972. He was Vice Chancellor of the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. Rupp left Redlands to become Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay in 1977, where he remained until 1979. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister.

He is the author of numerous articles and five books including:
Globalization Challenged: Commitment, Conflict, and Community;
Christologies and Cultures: Toward a Typology of Worldviews;
Beyond Existentialism and Zen: Religion in a Pluralistic World; and
'Culture Protestantism': German Liberal Theology at the Turn of the 20th Century

George and his wife Nancy are the parents of two adult daughters who are teaching and writing, one with scholarly expertise in East Asia and the other a specialist in African studies, and the grandparents of two girls and three boys.