Dr. Mordechai Rozanski
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Mordechai Rozanski became Rider University’s sixth president on August 1, 2003.
In his first three years at Rider, President Rozanski has undertaken an ambitious program of institution renewal that is leading the University to the next level of prominence and excellence. Last year, he oversaw completion of a comprehensive and highly participatory strategic planning process that is providing the framework for Rider’s renewal. It builds on the University’s 140-year legacy of distinguished achievements and is strengthening the institution’s academic stature, student life, financial robustness and reputation.
President Rozanski envisions Rider as a leader in American higher education celebrated for educating talented students for citizenship, life and career success in a diverse and interdependent world. As part of this vision, Rider will achieve distinctiveness by focusing on students first, by cultivating leadership skills, by affirming teaching and learning that bridges the theoretical and the practical and by fostering a culture of academic excellence.
The most visible evidence of Rider’s renewal is the $28 million in facilities projects completed last fall with the opening of the new residence hall and the completion of the first two phases of the new Student Recreation Center (SRC). The residence hall, along with new three-story additions to adjoining Hill and Ziegler residence halls, provide 186 new beds and apartment-style suites for students. The 55,000 sq. ft. SRC houses a 3,600 sq. ft. fitness center, three multi-purpose playing courts, a 165-meter elevated jogging track, and student game room. The facility also includes offices and conference rooms for Rider’s expanded intramural and club sports programs and camp and conference services, an atrium connecting the SRC to Alumni Gym, Rider’s primary athletics facility, and a café and lounge area.
Planning is currently under way for the third phase of the SRC that will include a new arena for basketball, volleyball and wrestling as well as renovation of Alumni Gym. Plans are also under way for a new academic complex for Westminster Choir College complete with large performance and rehearsal spaces, classrooms and practice rooms. These are in addition to a number of academic and student life enhancements that have been completed over the past three years on both campuses.
President Rozanski’s 30-year record of higher education leadership includes service at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck from 1986 to 1991, first as dean of liberal arts and then as provost and vice president of academic affairs. He also served as provost of Wagner College, on Staten Island, New York until his appointment as president of the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, where he served from 1993 to 2003. During his tenure as Guelph’s president, President Rozanski led the University to national prominence as Canada’s top-rated comprehensive university on three occasions; and two successful capital campaigns, exceeding $100 million, increasing Guelph’s endowment by 300 percent.
President Rozanski’s life story evokes his philosophy that education has the power to transform lives. Born in Poland, the son of Holocaust survivors, his family fled to Israel, lived in France and immigrated to Montreal in 1953. His parents’ greatest wish was for him to get the education they were deprived.
He was the first in the family to complete elementary school and went on to study at McGill University in Montreal, earning a B.A. in Chinese history. He then earned a Ph.D. in Chinese history/American East Asian Relations at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. He variously held summer fellowships at Columbia University and Stanford University and a year-long fellowship in Chinese language studies and research in Hong Kong.
President Rozanski held the rank of professor and taught Chinese and Asian history at several universities and colleges. He has published and lectured on Chinese history, Chinese-American relations, international education, higher education, and other related topics.
He and his wife Bonnie reside in Betta House, the President’s residence adjacent to the Rider campus in Lawrenceville, NJ. Their son Daniel and his family live nearby in Lawrenceville.
President Mordechai Rozanski
Work Phone: (609)896-5001
Moore Library 101
E-mail: mrozanski@rider.edu
