LeClerc remembers the 1960s as a time of possibilities. "No one worried about getting a job," he says. "These days, kids come out of even the best colleges uncertain of their future. They were good times.
"It was a period of great optimism," he continues. "That was the era of Pope John XXIII, and windows were being opened. There was John Kennedy and the Peace Corps. The world was changing and one felt one could make a difference."
LeClerc applied to the Peace Corps, but he also felt the call of an academic career.
"I finally took the advice of Fr. Desautels," he says, "who suggested summer school at Columbia, followed by a period at the Sorbonne, and a Ph.D. at Columbia."
At Columbia University, LeClerc studied under the third important teacher of his career, Otis Fellows, a scholar of the French Enlightenment.
"For me and most of my generation, we didn't experience mentoring the way almost every liberal arts student does today," he says, "but what I found in each of these three teachers was an enormous well of inspiration."
LeClerc advanced quickly in his field, publishing widely and rising to the posts of department and division chair at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.
"I loved teaching and scholarship," he says, "but then I became department chair when I was 32 or 33. And then chair of the humanities division, which was more coordinating governance functions rather than just administration. I found I really liked working within a structure. I liked committees. I liked management."
In 1979, as LeClerc puts it, "a lot of things happened." He divorced (he has since remarried); his mother died; and he joined the staff of the City University of New York as dean for academic affairs — with responsibility for all new academic programs.
"So I gave up tenure, sold my house, moved to New York and began all over again," he says. "I could have fallen flat on my face. There was no safety net."
The transfer from the academic to the administrative world is often challenging, but LeClerc felt the need to make the change. "To use the contemporary jargon, it all depends on the kind of skill-set you have and the amount of risk you're willing to take," he says. "Giving up tenure was a risk, but a risk worth taking."
A colleague advised LeClerc of the importance of continuing his scholarship, even though there was less time for it. LeClerc took the advice and published four more books.
Named provost and vice president for academic affairs at CUNY's Baruch College in 1984, he realized, in 1988, his "immodest ambition" of becoming a college president at CUNY's Hunter College.
And, LeClerc made another career jump in 1993 — this time to the New York Public Library.
"It's different in that you're not interacting with students and faculty," he says of his present position, "but it's similar in that you're dealing with a vast number of different constituencies. And there's a lot of fund raising and continuous public relations, dealings with elected officials, donors, corporations, the media."
One of his proudest achievements at the library is building its Voltaire collection into one of the best in the nation — a "self-indulgence," he concedes, but a "responsible" one. "If you woke me up two in the morning and asked me who I am, I would identify myself as a scholar of the 18th century and Voltaire," he says. He is also proud that during his tenure the library endowment has gone from $270 million to $717 million and that $362 million has been spent on capital projects.
"If you woke me up at two in the morning and asked me who I am, I would identify myself as a scholar of the 18th century and Voltaire," LeClerc says, "although I have virtually no time to pursue scholarly writing.
"I do an occasional lecture," he adds.
Keeper of the Books, continued >>>
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