Ex-Stanford Chief Will Return to University

Richard W. Lyman, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and president emeritus of Stanford University, will return to Stanford next Sept. 1 as the first director of its Institute of International Studies, the university announced Tuesday.

Lyman, who is a historian, served as Stanford’s president from 1970 to 1980, when he became head of the foundation. Lyman, who turns 65 next year, faces mandatory retirement from his Rockefeller Foundation post.

His planned return to Stanford, which is subject to regular academic approval, was reported to the university’s board of trustees and the foundation’s board of trustees at their regular meetings Tuesday.

“Universities in this country, and Stanford in particular, have enormous capabilities in the study of other countries and of international questions,” Lyman said in a statement. “But they are going to have to do better than they have so far in helping Americans to understand the rapidly changing world around them.

“Interdependence is a popular buzzword, but real understanding of what it means and will mean to us, economically, politically and culturally, is still lacking. This is a considerable challenge at Stanford as elsewhere and I look forward to doing whatever I can to help meet it.”

Stanford President Donald Kennedy said, “We are all delighted that Dick Lyman would consider returning in this critically important role.”

At the Rockefeller Foundation, John R. Evans, chairman of its board of trustees, credited Lyman with improving the size and quality of the foundation’s programs. “He will be missed,” Evans said.

The new institute will bring together several existing research programs, including the Center for International Security and Arms Control, the Northeast Asia-U.S. Forum on International Policy, the Project on U.S.-Mexico Relations, the Program on Soviet International Behavior and the Brazil Project.