LEVY, HARRY LOUIS

LEVY, HARRY LOUIS (1906– ), U.S. classical scholar and university administrator. Born in New York, Levy graduated from City College and received his doctorate at Columbia University in 1936, editing the invective In Rufinum of the fourth-century Roman poet Claudian (revised edition 1971, American Philological Association). Levy served on the faculty of Hunter College from 1928, becoming professor of classics in 1953. From 1949 to 1952 he was editor-in-chief of the Classical Weekly. From 1951 to 1953 and from 1959 to 1963 he was dean of students at Hunter College in the Bronx; and in 1963, when the City University of New York was organized, he was named dean of studies in charge of the master plan of the university. In a celebrated incident in 1965, protesting the interference of New York City's Board of Higher Education with the academic administration of the university Levy, together with the chancellor and the presidents of two of the city colleges, submitted letters of resignation or of impending retirement. The Board promptly revised its procedures and the resignations were withdrawn. Levy was subsequently promoted to be administrative vice chancellor and, in 1966, vice chancellor. In 1968 he retired and served until 1971 as professor of humanities at the newly established Liberal Arts College of Fordham University. In 1971 he became research fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. From 1973 he was a visiting professor of classics at Duke University.

A master teacher, he wrote extensively on methods for revitalizing the teaching of Latin. With his military gait and rapid-fire wit, he was an important force for the preservation of the classics, particularly through the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, of which he served as chairman in 1963. He served as president of the American Philological Association from 1973 to 1974. His wife, whose professional name is Ernestine Friedl, was in charge of the doctoral program in anthropology at the City University of New York 1969–1970 and became professor of anthropology at Duke University in 1973. Levy wrote A Latin Reader for Colleges (1939; 1962).

bibliography:

E.A. Robinson, in: Classical Weekly, 46 (1952/3), 1: Directory of American Scholars, 3 (1963⁵), 237.

[Louis Harry Feldman]