Prior to Parsons School of Design's affiliation with the New School for Social Research, the school was governed by a president and a powerful board of trustees. Frank Alvah Parsons served as president from 1908 to 1930 and was succeeded by William M. Odom in 1930 following Parsons' death. Odom served until his death in 1940, at which time Van Day Truex assumed the school's presidency. Both Odom and Truex were Parsons School of Design alumni. Truex resigned in 1952 and was succeeded by Pierre Bedard, who was not a Parsons alumnus and had previously been director of The French Institute in the United States.

Dr. Sterling Adolph Callisen served as the president of Parsons from 1959 until his resignation in 1963. Prior to becoming head of the school, Callisen served on the Board of Trustees and was Dean of Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He received a doctorate in Art History from Harvard University in 1936. He taught art, archaeology, and history at Harvard University, the University of Rochester, and Wesleyan University, where he was a dean, before joining the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1949. Dr. Callisen was a World War I Navy veteran and served in the Office of Strategic Services, the predeccesor of the Central Intelligence Agency, during World War II.

When Callisen became president of Parsons, he inherited an insitution in financial straits, primarily as a result of decreased enrollment during the 1950s. He responded by tightening budgets, administrative procedures, and departmental programs. According to David C. Levy, who would become dean in 1970, among Callisen's highest priorities and biggest accomplishments was the reorganization of admissions procedures: "Callisen viewed the Admissions Office as the key to institutional growth and placed great emphasis on its effective and professional operation. A broad-based, far-reaching and highly effective recruitment program was developed in the early 1960s…” [1]

Callisen also sought to remedy inconsistencies in the teaching program across departments. He established the Faculty Council consisting of himself, the dean, and the chairs of each department. This group met at least once a week, and would continue to exist as a body after Callisen stepped down as president. Both Callisen and his successor, Francis A. Ruzicka, undertook efforts to establish a degree-granting program at Parsons.

In January 1963, Dr. Callisen announced his resignation from the Office of the President in order to accept a directorship at the Edward E. Ford Foundation. Dr. Callisen died in 1988. Francis ("Frank") A. Ruzicka was the last president of Parsons.

Ruzicka was born in Chicago in 1924 and studied engineering at the University of Michigan. He served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and completed his bachelor's degree in 1946. After working as an engineer, he returned to school and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing and painting from the Art Institute of Chicago. Following a teaching assignment at the University of Wisconsin, he joined the faculty of Parsons in 1957. While teaching at Parsons, he earned an Masters of Fine Arts in painting (1963) and an Masters of Science in art education (1965) from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Ruzicka served as an assistant dean and an academic dean before becoming president of Parsons in 1963. He announced his resignation from Parsons in 1969.

Under Ruzicka's presidency research and preparation began for many of the changes that Parsons underwent in the early 1970s. Prior to his resignation, the school applied for and received authority from the Regents of the University of the State of New York to grant bachelor's degrees. However, the program was not implemented until after Parsons became affiliated with the New School for Social Research. Under Ruzicka, the Parsons administration also engaged in considerable preparatory activity to expand its curriculum into the liberal arts and to begin offering master's degree programs. Additionally, the Ruzicka adminstration recognized that the school's cramped, leased space on East 54th Street was hampering Parsons' ability to expand. To remedy the problem, Ruzicka undertook a campaign to move the school's facilities into a new "vertical campus," but this was never realized, and the school did not move downtown until after its affiliation with the New School.

After leaving Parsons, Ruzicka became dean at Ohio State University's College of the Arts and, in 1976, was elected chair of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, Athens. He retired in 1993. Francis A. Ruzicka died in 2003.

After Parsons merged with The New School in 1970 the position of the president was eliminated and the role of dean (later, executive dean) took on greater significance. John Everett, president of The New School, appointed David Levy to the position in 1970.

[1] Levy, 82. ---

Sources:

"Francis A. Ruzicka." Online Athens, Athens Banner-Herald, last modified May 9, 2003, https://web.archive.org/web/20030709102238/http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/051003/obi_20030510041.shtml

"Francis A. Ruzicka, Former Chair of UGA Art Department, Dies at 78." University of Georgia Public Affairs News Bureau, The University of Georgia, last modified May 7, 2003, https://web.archive.org/web/20100606110910/http://www.uga.edu/news/newsbureau/releases/2003releases/0305/030507ruzicka.html

Levy, David C. "An Historical Study of Parsons School of Design and Its Merger/Affiliation with The New School for Social Research." PhD diss., New York University, 1979.