Neil Leon Rudenstine (born January 21, 1935) is an American scholar, educator, and administrator. He served as president of Harvard University from 1991 to 2001. Early life and education Rudenstine was born in Danbury, Connecticut, the son of Mae (née Esperito) and Harry Rudenstine, a prison guard. His father was a Ukrainian Jew who emigrated from Kyiv, his mother a Roman Catholic and the daughter of immigrants from Campobasso, Italy. Rudenstine was raised as a Roman Catholic and grew up speaking Italian with his mother’s family. Later in life, he said, he began to understand more about his Jewish heritage. He also pointed out that he had attended an Episcopalian boarding school and a university with Presbyterian roots. "One way or another, I’ve become extremely ecumenical", he said. He attended the Wooster School in Danbury on a scholarship and was selected to participate in Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Rudenstine graduated with an A.B. in English from Princeton University in 1956 after completing his senior thesis, "The Burden of Poetry: A Study in the Art of John Keats, Matthew Arnold and Thomas Stearns Eliot". At Princeton, he participated in Army R.O.T.C. After serving in the U.S. Army as an artillery officer, he attended New College, University of Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned an M.A. In 1964, Rudenstine received a Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard; his dissertation, Sir Philip Sidney: The Styles of Love, directed by Douglas Bush, treated Sidney's poetic development. Career Most of Rudenstine's career has been dedicated to educational administration. He taught at Harvard from 1964 to 1968 as an instructor and then assistant professor in the Department of English and American Literature and Language. From 1968 to 1988, Rudenstine was a faculty member and senior administrator at Princeton. A scholar of Renaissance literature, he was an associate professor and then full professor of English. He also held a series of administrative posts at Princeton: Dean of students (1968–1972) Dean of the college (1972–1977) Provost (1977–1988) After his time at Princeton, he served as executive vice-president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation from 1988 to 1991. President of Harvard Rudenstine served as president of Harvard from 1991 to 2001. He gained a reputation as an effective fundraiser, overseeing a period of highly successful growth in Harvard's endowment. Rudenstine led Harvard's first university-wide fundraising campaign in modern history, raising