This collection of papers from Dr. Rowe’s office is different from previous Presidents’ collections, providing a higher level view of Mount Sinai. There are very few files relating to the various departments of the Medical School or the Hospital as is seen in earlier President’s files. There is also little here relating to the Hospital’s establishment of the Mount Sinai Health System, although the merger with New York University is covered. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that Dr. Rowe served as President of the Mount Sinai Medical Center only. Earlier Presidents had also been Dean of the School of Medicine and so had oversight over these departmental or institution specific issues.
There is a great wealth of material regarding Mount Sinai’s efforts vis-à-vis other institutions. This includes proposed initiatives with Columbia University, the affiliation with the City’s Queens Hospital Center and the years of controversy over privatization of the Queens’ municipal hospitals, and the School of Medicine’s affiliation contracts with Elmhurst and Queens Hospitals. There are also files relating to the Department of Geriatrics and the development of creating ties with businesses and Keio University in Japan.
The merger with New York University is documented by two distinct series of files that were received and processed separately. The “MS-NYU Initiative” files (boxes 24-25) cover the initial proposal, development and implementation of the merger. The “NYU” files (boxes 27-28) document Dr. Rowe’s service as President of the combined Mount Sinai-NYU Health following the merger and include departmental correspondence, real estate / building records, and an extensive collection of material related to the NYU Downtown Hospital.
Mount Sinai’s real estate holdings and physical facilities are documented by an extensive subject file on buildings (BLD, boxes 4-6), and its financial activities by a finance series (FIN, boxes 13-14) and an extensive series on fundraising (FND, boxes 15-20.) There is a small amount of material related to Mount Sinai School of Medicine (box 26), primarily covering commencements, convocations and honorary degrees.
Also of importance are the extensive files on the search for a new Dean in 1996/97, the many files charting Mount Sinai’s efforts to deal with the rise of AIDS in New York, and the files on establishing the Office of Technology Transfer and its later efforts, a matter of great importance to institutions in the late 20th, early 21st century.
