Bartlett was born in Salem, Oregon, and was youngest of three sons of Cleave Bartlett, an auditor-bookkeeper and real estate broker, and the former Alma Hanson, a housewife.
[2] He attended Willamette University for two years, where he joined Beta Theta Pi fraternity, before transferring to Stanford University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa society.
He was called out of a brief retirement to head the State University of New York System in 1994, but conflicts with George Pataki appointees[4] on the university's board of trustees led to his resignation after just 17 months on the job.
[5] After SUNY, he became chairman of the board of trustees of the United States-Japan Foundation, leaving after seven years to re-assume the Presidency of the American University in Cairo on an interim basis.
The Thomas A. Bartlett Chair of English at Colgate University is named after him.