[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20971-20972]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SALUTE TO ROBERT C. WOOD

 Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I am pleased to recognize 
and honor Robert C. Wood, former Secretary of Housing and Urban 
Development and president of the University of Massachusetts, as he 
celebrates his 80th birthday this month.
  I first met Robert Wood when he was a member of President Kennedy's 
Cambridge ``Brain Trust'' in 1960, and I have had the pleasure of 
consulting with him on many issues since that time.
  Robert C. Wood is a remarkable man who has made even more remarkable 
contributions to the people of this Nation through a combination of 
outstanding scholarship and public service. He has worked tirelessly to 
improve opportunities for all, be it in obtaining a high quality 
education, ensuring access to housing for low-income families, or 
developing policies and programs that guide urban development and local 
governments across the country.
  Professor Wood was raised in north Florida during the Great 
Depression and, along with his two brothers, learned the values of 
education and hard work from his mother, who was a school teacher, and 
his father, a shoe salesman. A full scholarship enabled him to attend 
Princeton University, but his studies were interrupted by service as an 
infantry sergeant in World War II where he saw action in the Battle of 
the Bulge. After the war, the G.I. Bill enabled him to earn a doctorate 
in Government and Political Economy at Harvard University, and he 
returned to Florida to apply his professional skills to that state's 
Legislative Reference Bureau.
  He was soon recruited from Florida to the Federal Bureau of the 
Budget during the Truman Administration and, after that, took a 
teaching appointment at Harvard. This was a critical time in the 
development of new ideas about American cities, and Robert Wood was a 
major author of these new ideas. His first book, ``Suburbia, its People 
and Their Politics,'' took the term ``suburbia'' and placed it firmly 
into the center of political thinking and analysis. His next book, 
``1400 Governments: The Political Economy of the New York Region'' is 
regarded as a classic in analysis of the dynamics of local governments 
and the factors that inhibit their effectiveness. It was at this time 
that Professor Wood helped my brother John draft a speech on the 
American City that he used in a rally in Pittsburgh during his 1960 
presidential campaign. It was the first speech on American cities ever 
delivered by a presidential candidate.
  We in Washington took note, and Professor Wood was asked to chair the 
task force that recommended the establishment of a new Cabinet level 
Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He then 
went on to be the first Undersecretary of the new Department, serving 
under the first ever African American Cabinet

[[Page 20972]]

Secretary, Secretary Robert C. Weaver, and succeeding him as Secretary 
in 1969. During these years, Robert Wood along with Secretary Weaver 
supported and implemented key legislative initiatives that dramatically 
improved and expanded federally assisted housing and urban development 
programs in the United States, including the Model Cities Act of 1966, 
the Housing Act of 1968 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. These 
critical programs in urban development continued long after the Johnson 
administration, as well as future administrations, Democratic and 
Republican alike.
  Professor Wood returned to Boston and continued his work with a focus 
on education and the expansion of opportunity to all. He became 
President of the University of Massachusetts where he oversaw the 
development of a new medical school in Worcester and a new campus in 
Boston. He particularly fostered a college of Public and Community 
Service at the Boston campus. In 1976, he stepped forward to offer a 
site at the Boston campus for the Kennedy Presidential Library where it 
stands today.
  While focused on higher education, Robert Wood also became a key 
player in elementary and secondary education. While at the university, 
he chaired the Citywide Coordinating Council, which was charged with 
overseeing the court ordered desegregation of the Boston Public School 
System. Later, the School Committee chose him to be Superintendent of 
Schools, where he labored intensively to find long-term solutions to 
the dilemmas of school desegregation and school quality in a city 
recently torn by racial strife.
  In 1983, Wesleyan University invited him to become the Henry Luce 
Professor of Democratic Institutions and the Social Order, and 
Professor Wood dedicated the next ten years to teaching and inspiring 
future leaders to take up the work of public service. Today, his former 
students can be found in town halls and statehouses across the country 
as well as in the halls of government in Washington, DC.
  In recognition of this rare career combining groundbreaking 
scholarship with dedicated public service, the American Political 
Science Association gave Robert C. Wood its Hubert H. Humphrey Award in 
1986.
  In 1993, Professor Wood returned to Boston and the Boston campus of 
the University of Massachusetts where he continued as a teacher of 
students and a mentor of public officials and academic colleagues.
  His contributions to individuals, institutions and to our Nation have 
been great, and I thank him and wish him a happy birthday.

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