When Roger Hull became president of Schenectady's Union College in 1990, surveys showed more than 60 percent of students thought being in Schenectady was a “high negative.” The city was in serious decline and there were few signs that it was going to get better.
“From an aesthetic standpoint, Union was not the beautiful campus it is today,” said Bill Schwarz, director of corporate and government relations at Union. The Nott Memorial, held together by railroad ties, was crumbling. But all that changed due in large part to Hull's initiatives.
Hull invested $100 million in infrastructure and built 20 new buildings on campus. Union also acquired or renovated around 50 buildings in the college neighborhood. More than 4.000 students apply for the college's 520 freshman slots, and almost two-thirds of the students come from out of state. “Now we trumpet the fact that we're in Schenectady and Tech Valley,” Schwarz said.
Hull said this week he will resign as president of Union in June after holding the post for 15 years. His decision saddened many business leaders, who say Hull helped attract more people and commerce to Schenectady by using the college as a lifeline for the city's struggling economy.
Neil Golub, president and CEO of Golub Corp. in Rotterdam, has known Hull since 1993, when they met helping to create the master plan for Schenectady's downtown. Golub also worked with Hull that year on Schenectady 2000 a civic improvement program that gave way to the Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority.
“He recognized that Union plays a major role in bringing people to the area,” Golub said. “He saw the quality of the school as integral to the Schenectady scene.'
George Robertson, president of the Schenectady Economic Development Corp., also co-founded Schenectady 2000 with Hull. He said Hull's work indirectly helped create Metroplex, which has awarded $65 million to Schenectady businesses. Most of that money has gone to the city's downtown.
“He [Hull] used the presidency at Union as a bully pulpit for pushing Schenectady 2000,” Robertson said. “Now, downtown is coming back.”
Hull oversaw more than $20 million worth of revitalization efforts for neighborhoods surrounding Union. The college renovated the Ramada Inn on Nott Terrace into a dorm, and restored homes in the Seward Place neighborhood just west of Union's campus. “The streetscape dramatically improved and made it an attractive area, rather than a blighted area,” Golub said.
One renovated property near Seward Place became home to the U-Start business incubator program, which Hull co-founded with former GE executive Walter Robb in 1998.
“We saw startups spinning off from GE always going to Albany or Rensselaer County,” Robb said. “We felt one way to help Schenectady was to get some of these startups in an incubator and get Union mentors to work with the startups.” Interns from Union work for the six companies currently in the incubator.
Hull, a graduate of Yale Law School, gave up a lucrative career as an attorney to enter higher education in 1970, but considered resigning for the last year. He finalized the decision within the past six weeks and informed the college's board of trustees on the morning of Jan. 10.
“Fifteen years is an incredibly long run for a college president,” he said. “I think we've tackled all the tough issues and turned things around, so I think it's a good time to hand the reins to someone else.”
Now in his early 60s, Hull plans to create a charitable foundation that will start academies on college and university campuses for at-risk grade-school children. The charity is based on a similar program Hull started when he was president of Beloit College in Beloit, Wis. in the mid- 1930s. There, Hull's program had a 95 percent success rate, with students going on to college.
Hull, originally from New York City, said there's a 90 percent chance he'll stay in the Capital Region. He's confident Schenectady will keep progressing, if leaders put politics aside. “I think things are on a good course,” he said. “But one has to stay the course. One needs to shunt aside the personal and petty political things that tend to take place. This is a great community and we have a lot of talent, but we don't have so much that we can engage in political bickering and succeed at the same time.”