Richard Levis McCormick (born December 26, 1947) is a historian, professor and president emeritus of Rutgers University. Early life The son of Richard Patrick McCormick, a Rutgers professor and administrator, and Katheryne C. Levis, a University administrator, Richard Levis McCormick was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. After graduating from Piscataway Township High School in Piscataway, New Jersey, McCormick earned his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Amherst College in American studies (1969) and subsequently a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in History (1976) from Yale University. Academic career Rutgers faculty McCormick served on the Rutgers University History faculty from 1976 to 1992, including three years as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He team-taught an American history course with his father, Richard P. McCormick. In 1985, he held a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship as well as a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship. UNC-Chapel Hill McCormick served as vice chancellor and provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1992 to 1995. His tenure was marked by the settling of a controversy over a proposed Black Cultural Center. More than a dozen students were arrested in a sit-in protest demanding construction of the facility, which opponents viewed as an attempt to create a separatist facility. McCormick won campuswide support by emphasizing the academic aspects of the center and helped initiate a fundraising campaign to build it. The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History opened in 2004. University of Washington Presidency McCormick served as President of the University of Washington from 1995 to 2002. Although hampered by declining state funding, McCormick promoted undergraduate research and helped boost UW's six-year graduation rate from 67 percent in 1995 to 72 percent in 2000. He launched an annual faculty bus tour to encourage the university to adopt a statewide perspective. Research funding and private giving reached record levels in McCormick's tenure, but he was unable to prevent passage of a 1998 statewide initiative, I-200 Initiative 200, ending the university's affirmative action programs. When McCormick announced his intent to take a position at Rutgers, he became the first UW president in 50 years to leave for another university. McCormick's departure from the University of Washington was prompted, in part, by pressure from the UW Board of Regents regarding an affair McCormick had with a coworker during his presidency. Rutgers Presidency McCormick took office as Rutgers