From Bottom to Top Tier in a Decade: The Wagner College Turnaround Years 1988-2002

From Bottom to Top Tier in a Decade: Th e Wagner College Turnaround Years is a memoir recounting one of the most remarkable turnaround stories in American higher education, as recalled by the president who led a fourteen-year campaign bringing this fi nancially troubled, under-enrolled, bottom-ranked college from disrepair and impending closure to wide regard as one of the top small, residential private colleges in the east. By the time Norman Smith departed in 2002, the college was ranked top tier, was full to capacity, and was cited as one of America's most beautiful college campuses. Located on a hilltop overlooking Manhattan that had once been Vanderbilt and Cunard estates, Wagner College should never have gotten into trouble. Th is recounting is not only an engaging human story of the many trustees, benefactors, faculty, and staff who were key to the turnaround, but also represents a case study template of what must happen for any college to survive and ultimately fl ourish in these competitive times for private higher education.