[3][4] In 1998, Schmidt was appointed chair of a task force established by New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to evaluate systemic issues at CUNY by executive order.
[4] Schmidt achieved tenure at Columbia in 1973, at age 29, and was named the Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law in 1982.
He anticipated the need to repair the university's physical infrastructure, which had fallen into disrepair, but widespread renovation was not carried out until the arrival of Schmidt's successor Rick Levin.
[10] Schmidt was criticized for maintaining his primary residence in New York City during his tenure as president of Yale,[13] with his wife Helen Whitney, a documentary filmmaker.
A year later, on June 7, 1999, the task force report entitled "An Institution Adrift" characterized the "moribund conditions" of a public University system "caught in a spiral of decline".
Similarly, in a section on financial planning, Schmidt advised the university overhaul the passivity of CUNY's central Executive Administration.
[21][6][2] Schmidt served as Director/Trustee of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; chairman of board for the Council on Aid to Education - a not-for-profit providing colleges and universities assessment and strategic planning services; the National Humanities Center (NHC), and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as an advisory board member of the Happy Hearts Fund, a nonprofit focused on rapidly rebuilding schools in disaster-stricken areas.
[4][22] In 2014, Schmidt delivered a talk at the Yale commencement ceremony, entitled "Governance for a New Era", or "The Schmidt Report", and subtitled "A Blueprint for Higher Education Trustees", in which the former University president harshly criticized passive governance over the nation's public and smaller private institutions, which serve the vast majority of American college students.
Schmidt issued a challenge to higher education leadership to step up and take responsibility for doing more to increase academic standards and graduation rates.
"[25] In November 2010, Schmidt received the sixth annual Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) for outstanding contributions to liberal arts education.