He was opposed in these efforts by the traditionalist chancellor R. Gordon Hoxie who had sought to raise tuition as a means of dealing with the college's mounting debt burden.

1,500 students gathered to mount what turned out to be an unsuccessful protest against Birenbaum's dismissal, chanting "We want Bill" and physically confronting Dr. Hoxie.

The chairman of the search committee called him a "courageous and charismatic personality" who is an "experienced chief executive with a strong track record in crisis-type settings.

[7] A resident of Brooklyn and Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Birenbaum died at the age of 87 on October 4, 2010, due to heart failure at his New York City home.

[1] In a 1972 CBC documentary, Dr. Birenbaum comments on controversial independent scholar Immanuel Velikovsky and how such scholarship could be a natural part of the academic curriculum.