Office of the President: John P. Crecine Records
Collection
Identifier: UA007
The Crecine records contain files documenting the day-to-day operations of the upper administration of Georgia Tech from the years prior to Crecine's Presidency through his last year in office.
(94 document cases)
Restrictions are noted in the Container List of this collection description.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
37.6 Linear Feet
Series 1, documenting the final year of John P. Crecine's Presidency, contains the records of the President as well as those of the upper administration, including the Executive Vice President (Subseries 2), the Vice President for External Affairs (Subseries 3), the Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance (Subseries 6), and the Vice President for Student Services (Subseries 7). A large group of files on the Board of Regents is also found in Series 1 (see Subseries 1).
Series 2, a small series of under 3 linear feet, includes files on the planning for the 1996 Olympics.
Series 3 covers mainly the period between 1990 and 1993, the middle years of Crecine's Presidency. The academic restructuring is well-documented in Subseries 7 of this series, the Executive Vice President subseries, particularly in the folders on each of the academic units. Other subseries contain information on activities of the Alumni Association (Subseries 1), athletics (Subseries 2), the Board of Regents (Subseries 4), Georgia Tech Research Corporation (Subseries 8), and Georgia Tech Research Institute (Subseries 9). Smaller subseries include those on Atlanta organizations (Subseries 3), economic development (Subseries 5), the Executive Assistant to the President (Subseries 6), and the Vice President, Information Technology (Subseries 10).
John Patrick Crecine (1939-2008) served as the ninth President of the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1987 to 1994.
John P. Crecine (known as "Pat") was born on August 22, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan, the older of two sons. After receiving his early education in public schools in Lansing, Michigan, Crecine obtained Bachelor's, Master's, and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Management from Carnegie Mellon University in 1961, 1963, and 1966 respectively.
Crecine took up positions at the University of Michigan in 1965, serving as a research associate and an assistant professor of Sociology and Political Science. During his time at Michigan, he established the country's first graduate program in Public Policy in 1968. He also interspersed periods of work for the federal government and private sector during this time, as an economist with the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1966, as a consultant for the U.S. Bureau of Budget in 1967, and as an economist at The RAND Corporation in 1967. In 1976, Crecine accepted the appointment of Dean of the Carnegie Mellon College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He also served there as a professor of Political Economy. Seven years later, he became the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Carnegie Mellon, a position he held until he came to Georgia Tech as the ninth President in the fall of 1987.
Crecine's tenure at Georgia Tech was controversial. Charged with the restructuring of the Institute's four colleges (the Colleges of Engineering; Management; Architecture; and Sciences and Liberal Studies, known as COSALS), he created a new College of Computing; an independent College of Sciences; and he placed the College of Management in the Ivan Allen College of Management, Policy, and International Affairs. By doing away with the College of Management, and by bringing the matter before the faculty during the summer, while many were away, he created controversy. Nevertheless, the restructuring was approved by a narrow margin, and it took effect in January 1990. Further problems during Crecine's administration included several lawsuits; accusations of basing his promotions and demotions on personal vendettas; and a Board of Regents audit that pointed out weaknesses in administrative processes.
After many called for his resignation toward the end of his Presidency, Crecine resigned in 1994. In spite of many controversies, he could also claim many accomplishments. These include the gain of the Olympics for Atlanta and the Olympic Village for Georgia Tech; the increase of female faculty and minority student enrollment, particularly among African Americans; the establishment of the Ferst Center for the Arts and the West Campus dormitories; and the gain in stature of the College of Engineering, which rose into the top 10 nationally during his Presidency.
Crecine died of cancer in Pittsburgh on April 28, 2008. At the time of his death he was survived by his son, Robert Crecine; his daughter, Kate Schoenke; and his former wife, Barbara Vogel (nee Paltnavich), whom he had married in 1968.
Sources: Georgia Tech Archives Personality Files (UA415B).
This collection is arranged into series that are mostly based on chronological time periods, corresponding to the transfers of records from the President's office. The original order and file structure for each series have been retained and/or reconstructed, when they are possible to determine.
Series 1 covers the last year of Crecine's Presidency; additional series will cover Crecine's earlier years, as well as the later years of Joseph M. Pettit's Presidency and the interim period, during which Henry C. Bourne, Jr. served as Acting President. Series 2 contains planning files for the 1996 Olympics. Series 3 documents the middle years of the Crecine period, 1990 through 1993.
A print copy of this finding aid is available on request in the Georgia Tech Archives reading room.
Series of transfers to Archives (accession number 1990.0509).
(94 document cases)
This collection, which consists of more than 200 linear feet in total, is gradually being processed. New series will be added regularly during late 2014 and 2015. To access the unprocessed portion of this collection, please contact an archivist.
Christine de Catanzaro processed these records beginning in October 2014, with the assistance of Taylor Prichard, Sarah Scott, and Germaine Schanzmeyer.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository