Back to School

When John Sawhill was profiled five years ago, he had already made a career switch from the business world, where he was a $100,000-a-year senior vice president of the Commercial Credit Co., to the Federal Government. He took a $60,000 salary cut in 1973 to become an associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. Within a year, he was head of the Federal Energy Office, forerunner of the Department of Energy.

Sawhill proposed then radical methods of cutting fuel consumption, like setting thermostats at 78DEG F in the summer. Bicycling to a Face the Nation interview was one of the ways he dramatized the need for conservation. He also advocated a 10-c--to 30-c--per-gal. increase in the gasoline tax to cut consumption. The move displeased President Ford, who encouraged him to resign in 1974.

The next year Sawhill switched careers again, becoming president of New York University, where he had earned a Ph.D. in economics. When Sawhill arrived, the nation's largest private university was in financial trouble. Sawhill has so far raised more than $50 million, slashed budgets, restructured the university's investments and managed to erase the projected $9 million budget deficit he inherited. He is now working to improve the quality of undergraduate education, and, as an example of how the university should concentrate its resources, is strengthening its research and teaching programs in cell biology. Sawhill also likes to pull on an old sweatshirt and jog around the N.Y.U. campus, stopping occasionally to pick up trash.

Sawhill was one of the leaders invited to Camp David for the series of conferences to discuss energy and Carter's leadership problems. The starting point of leadership in any area, Sawhill says, "is to set priority goals--a few, a very few, overarching goals--that cover many of the competing and conflicting issues. That's the only way to gain a consensus."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.