[3] His father was a Ukrainian Jew who emigrated from Kyiv, his mother a Roman Catholic and the daughter of immigrants from Campobasso, Italy.
in English from Princeton University in 1956 after completing his senior thesis, "The Burden of Poetry: A Study in the Art of John Keats, Matthew Arnold and Thomas Stearns Eliot".
With this funding Harvard increased student financial aid, supported new educational and research programs, built new buildings, and renovated existing spaces.
In the mid-1990s he helped found the Science Coalition and oversaw the growth of the university's federally sponsored research support, which rose to $320 million in 2000.
He developed many interdisciplinary programs, such as the Mind, Brain and Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, the University Committee on the Environment, and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
[11] He reorganized the university’s administrative structure so that the school deans also worked as a consultative cabinet, and he recreated the provost position to oversee the interfaculty initiatives created during his presidency.
[15] In April 2000, during the 30th-anniversary celebration of the Department of Afro-American Studies, he said, "Harvard will continue to take ethnicity and race into account, along with many other factors, as it admits students".
One source of his opposition was the sit-in organized by students and alumni, during which the institution's administrative offices were occupied for more than two weeks, bringing work to a standstill.
The committee cited the university's strong record as an employer and recommended additional measures to build on its offerings for employees, which Rudenstine endorsed and advocated for during the remainder of his tenure.
[19] In November 1994, the University announced that Rudenstine would take a medical leave of absence on the advice of doctors, who noted that he was suffering from severe fatigue and exhaustion.
[27] Rudenstine has been a member of various advisory groups, including the National Commission on Preservation and Access and the Council on Library Resources.