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How Lander Built Touro Into a Multinational Empire
NEW YORK -- If anyone believes in the adage "The Lord will provide," it is the founder and president of Touro College, Rabbi Bernard Lander.
Now in his mid-80s, Rabbi Lander has built the college he founded in 1971 with 35 students into a 9,000-student, 20-campus multinational empire serving Jews and non-Jews and granting undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees in the liberal arts, law, medicine and business. With the help of bonds from New York City's Economic Development Corp., he's erecting a new $35 million campus in Kew Garden Hills, Queens, for a Jewish, all-male school, Lander College, that is set to open in September. He has even raided Yeshiva University for a popular member of its faculty Rabbi Abba Bronspigel (please see sidebar, Page 6), to head Lander's Talmud program, a signal that he would like to compete with Yeshiva and to upgrade Touro's undergraduate program, which U.S. News & World Report's annual survey ranks in the fourth, or bottommost, tier of regional colleges.
Rabbi Lander acknowledges, however, that Touro has not lined up a successor should his health fail. "God forbid, if something happens, that's in the hands of the board," he told the Forward during an interview in his West 23rd Street office. He also acknowledges that Touro, now with facilities all over the world, has a relatively tiny endowment -- about $15 million, according to the last federal tax forms filed by the college. "We're not spending time raising money," he said. "The time we're spending is for building facts on the ground." Asked to specify where the money will come from to pay off the debt for the new campus in Queens, he rolled his eyes heavenward and said, "Your children will worry about it."
Somebody has to. The question of whether Touro College will be able to continue its expansion without the benefit of the charismatic personality of Rabbi Lander is one that is troubling many of its officials these days....