----------------------------Original message---------------------------- To: SI Staff From: Office of the Secretary Subject: Ira Michael Heyman Elected New Secretary Wednesday, May 25, 1994 >From the Office of the Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. IRA MICHAEL HEYMAN ELECTED NEW SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN Ira Michael Heyman, Counselor to the Secretary of Interior and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, and former Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, was elected the 10th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution today by its Board of Regents. Heyman will succeed Robert McC. Adams, who is retiring on September 19, 1994, after 10 years as Secretary. In Mike Heyman, we found a range of skills which meshes perfectly with the needs and interests of the Smithsonian, said Barber B. Conable, Jr., Chairman of the Regents' Search Committee. A strong leader, he has successfully directed a large and diverse institution that is part of a complex statewide system. This experience will serve him and the Smithsonian well in the challenging years ahead. Heyman is best known for his distinguished service as Chancellor of Berkeley, 1980- 1990. He was Vice Chancellor from 1974 to 1980. Heyman's career at the University began in 1959 as a law professor. From 1966 until the present, he has been a professor of law and city and regional planning. In stepping down as Chancellor, he became the Selvin Professor of Law at the University. He was a visiting professor at Yale (1963-64) and at Stanford (1973-74). He served as chief law clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (1958-1959). A member of the state bars of California and New York, he earned his law degree in 1956 from Yale Law School, where he was editor of the Yale Law Journal, after receiving his BA degree from Dartmouth College. Heyman served more than a decade as a member of Dartmouth's Board of Trustees, which he chaired from 1991 to 1993. Heyman's expertise goes well beyond the legal field. His interests include civil rights, land planning, housing, affirmative action, environmental law and management, and metropolitan government, and he is the author of many journal articles and papers on these subjects. He has served as a consultant for a number of organizations, including the University of Hawaii, the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the Public Land Law Review Commission, and the Virgin Islands Planning Office. He has been a member of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents since 1990. He resigned that position effective today. Heyman has received three honorary degrees and the 1989 Koret Israel Prize, and in 1985 he was named a Chevalier de la Legion D'Honneur by the French government. Heyman is married to the former Therese Thau, who has been a curator of American prints and photographs, most recently at the Oakland Museum in California. They have a son, James, who is 30 years old and a physicist.