He served as the executive editor of The Papers of Alexander Hamilton and as the fourth president of Brooklyn College.
[3] Thereafter, he remained affiliated with the City University of New York as a professor of history at the CUNY Graduate Center, retiring in 1979.
[3] During this period, he served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize for History in the 1968, 1973 and 1979 award cycles, the latter two stints as chair.
[10] He also edited The Gentleman and the Tiger (1956), the memoirs of George B. McClellan Jr., the 93rd mayor of New York City and son of the Union Army American Civil War general.
[3] Syrett died of hepatitis, the result of a blood transfusion during a hip operation, on July 29, 1984, at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, New York.