Rosen Resigns Yet Again

David Rosen, Director of the Yeshiva University Department of Public Relations, has once again announced his resignation and is leaving YU to head the PR department at Emerson College, a communications and performing arts school in Boston. Rosen's departure leaves a sizable void at the helm of YUPR during a time of consequential transition for the University.

YUPR was founded by a man Rosen calls "a living legend," Sam Hartstein. Created by Hartstein in 1943 and headed by him for more than fifty years, YUPR grew from a single desk in 1947 to the series of offices and studios staffed by nearly 30 people on the fourth floor of Furst Hall. After Hartstein served YU for five decades, he retired to the position of Senior Advisor and passed the publicity torch to Rosen, calling him "the ultimate professional."

Rosen arrived at YU with an impressive public relations resume and extensive contacts in the media world. He spent ten years as a journalist in New England, during which he was a two-term president of the Massachusetts State House Press Association while working for publications such as the Boston Herald and Newsweek. Moving to the public relations field, Rosen worked as the Director of Public Information for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and then as the Chief of Staff of former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Murphy.

His true calling, however, Rosen found in the field of university public relations. He previously served as an Associate Vice-President for News and Public Relations at Harvard University, an Associate Vice-President for Public Affairs at the University of Chicago, and the Vice-President for Public Affairs at Brandeis University.

After leaving Brandeis in 1993, Rosen did consulting work for several colleges and nonprofit organization before he was recruited by YU. Soon after he arrived, he revamped and computerized the entire YUPR office, and redesigned the alumni magazine, updating its features and improving its graphics to reflect the more modern standard for such publications. He also inaugurated a new university newspaper, the YU Today. "I created it as a house organ for people to rely on, and to be lively, informative, accurate, and positive," said Rosen. He enhanced the PR department at the Cardozo School of Law, and oversaw improvements in all of YUPR's five departments - graphics, media, photography, development, and Midtown.

Rosen presided over PR stories such as the Anne Scheiber inheritance, which he considers his largest coup in office. He convinced the University administration to hold off announcing the news of Scheiber's gift until the annual Hannukah dinner, magnifying the impact of the news and allowing YUPR to prep the media. The results were impressive, with widespread national media exposure, and international coverage reaching as far as China, which ran a segment about the gift on Chinese national television.

During Rosen's tenancy of the corner office on the fourth floor of Furst Hall, YU was transformed from a school perennially delegated to the bottom tier of academic rankings to a first tier school in the distinguished company of some of the finest institutions of higher learning in America. Rosen orchestrated the University's media blitz about its ascendance to the upper level of educational heights. "During my stay here in YU we have gone from a third tier school, to a second tier school, to a first tier school four years running," said Rosen. "We have also attained record undergraduate enrollment and greatly increased the size of the endowment. PR played a role in all this, but it has been a total team effort within the administration."

Rosen's modesty notwithstanding, many attribute these achievements primarily to the higher media profile of YU, and by proxy, to the work done by YUPR.

Rosen also directed damage control for PR disasters such as the controversy over organizations for gay and lesbian students at YU's graduate schools, which Rosen termed "a couple of students cranking this thing up and the religious right outside of YU seeing some advantage in being critical." Yet oftentimes Rosen's counsel was willfully ignored on a number of University decisions, leading to public relations nightmares and more damage control work for YUPR.

This is not the first time Rosen has left YU. During the Fall '97 semester Rosen left to go work at Howard Rubenstein and Associates, one of the pre-eminent public relations firms in the city. But after a short stint in the world of celebrity spin control, Rosen regretted his decision and requested his position back from President Norman Lamm, who acquiesced and reinstated Rosen as PR director.

But this time Rosen claims his resignation is final. Citing family issues as the main impetus behind his decision, Rosen, who resides in Boston and commuted every week to an apartment in midtown, expressed relief at finally being able to work in Boston and be with his family, including an expectant daughter.

"Yeshiva University is a great and important institution, and I have enjoyed working here," Rosen said. "I have grown as a professional and as a Jew, and this has enriched my life. I have enjoyed a close working relationship with Dr. Lamm and other senior administrators, faculty members and rabbis. I will miss many of them, but most of all, I will miss the students."