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Robert H. Strotz, who rose through the academic ranks to become the 13th president of Northwestern University, died (Nov. 9 [1994]) at a nursing home in Deerfield after a long illness. He was 72.
A member of the Northwestern University faculty since 1947, Mr. Strotz had been professor of economics since 1958. He was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern for four years prior to his election as its 13th president in July 1970, continuing a period of unprecedented growth begun by his predecessor, J. Roscoe Miller, M.D., in which Northwestern University emerged as one of America's premier universities.
His 15-year tenure has been characterized as one of "people, ideas, and facilities" and was marked by an improvement in the quality of the student body, growing recognition of the excellence of the faculty, academic innovation and curricular change, and capital improvements of more than $142 million to meet the expanding needs of students and faculty.
"Bob Strotz was an educator, researcher and builder," said Thomas G. Ayers, retired chairman of Commonwealth Edison Company and chairman of Northwestern's board of trustees during much of the Strotz presidency. "He continued the emphasis on high-quality undergraduate education, but at the same time encouraged the faculty to pursue research, and it was under his guidance that Northwestern emerged as a first- rate research university," Ayers said, adding that sponsored research increased more than 300 percent during the Strotz presidency.
Mr. Ayers said that Mr. Strotz also attracted "important financial support" to Northwestern University, with the market value of the endowment doubling to more than $578 million and the book value of the physical plant doubling to $394 million during Strotz's tenure. He said that the university budget also increased nearly 400 percent to more than $394 million.
More renovation and new construction was completed at Northwestern during the period 1972 to 1982 than at any time in the University's history, adding more than 1.3 million square feet of space, including Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and other major facilities on the Evanston campus dedicated to support the University's national reputation in the arts; Nathaniel Leverone Hall, which became the headquarters of the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, then emerging as one of the leading graduate schools of business in the country, and the James L. Allen Center, its base for executive education; dormitories and residential colleges; Norris University Center, now the focal point of student activities; and the $27 million Health Sciences Building on the Chicago campus.
Mr. Strotz was appointed chancellor of Northwestern in 1985 and served for five years.
Mr. Strotz was regarded as an expert on economic theory and econometrics, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to the study of economic data and problems.
"Bob was a brilliant, original economic theorist," said Robert Eisner, William R. Kenan Professor of Economics at Northwestern. "He made seminal contributions in areas of business investment, measuring individual utility, and the nature of optimizing choices and their consistency over time."
Among his works that have made an impact have been "Myopia and Inconsistency in Dynamic Utility Maximization," "The Empirical Analysis of a Utility Tree and the Budgeting Process" and "Determinants of Business Investment," with Mr. Eisner.
He was editor of Econometrica, a quarterly publication of the Econometric Society, from 1953 to 1968; associate editor of the International Economic Review from 1960 to 1964; and editor of Contributions to Economic Analysis from 1955 to 1970. He was special editor for econometrics of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences from 1962 to 1968.
Mr. Strotz studied at major centers of research in econometrics in England, the Netherlands and Sweden with a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1955-56. He received a National Science Foundation grant for study in 1964-65 to research alternative methods of simultaneous equation estimation in economics when there are specification errors.
He was a fellow of the Econometric Society and a member of both the American Economic Association and the Royal Economic Society.
Mr. Strotz had been chairman of The Council on Postsecondary Accreditation and vice chairman of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
Mr. Strotz was a member of the board of directors of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, Illinois Tool Works, Inc., USG Corporation, Mark Controls Corporation, and the First Illinois Corporation. He was a past chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
A native of Aurora, Ill., Mr. Strotz received a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from the University of Chicago in 1942 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Ph.D. from Chicago in 1951. His dissertation was entitled, "Some Problems in the Pure Theory of Income Redistribution: A Study in Welfare Economics."
Mr. Strotz was awarded honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from both Illinois Wesleyan University and Millikin University. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Northwestern University on June 15, 1985.
Survivors include his wife, Margaret L. (Meg); his children, Vicki Rhodes of Madison, Wis., Michael Strotz of Winnetka, Frances Strotz of Waukegan, Ellen Macieiski of Danville, Ill., and Ann Pence of Kasilaf, Alaska; his brother, Loren of Aurora, clerk of the Second Judicial District of the Illinois Appellate Court; her children, Katie Hanley of Evanston, Marcia Hoover of Seattle, Wash., and Elizabeth Hughes of Evanston; and 13 grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on Nov. 21 at 4:00 p.m. at Alice Millar Chapel and Religious Center, 1870 Sheridan Road, Evanston. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to be made to the Robert H. Strotz Memorial Fund at Northwestern University.
