Saul B. Cohen

Saul B. Cohen was elected a Regent-at-Large on March 1, 1993 and reelected to five year terms effective on April 1, 1999 and April 1, 2004. Regent Cohen Chairs the Policy Integration and Innovation Committee, chaired the Higher and Professional Education Committee from 1998 to 2003, and chaired the Elementary, Middle, Secondary and Continuing Education Committee from 1995 to 1998. He chairs the Regents Visiting Committee for the State Archives and is a member of the New York State Archives Partnership Trust. Regent Cohen is a geographer whose specialties are geopolitical theory and political geography. He is University Professor Emeritus at Hunter College and the City University of New York, Past President of the Association of American Geographers, President Emeritus of Queens College of the City University of New York (where he served from 1978-85), former Director of the Graduate School of Geography of Clark University, and former Dean of the Clark University Graduate School.

Born in Malden, Massachusetts, Dr. Cohen grew up in Boston and attended the public schools of Everett, Massachusetts and the Boston Public Latin School. During the Second World War he fulfilled his military service with the United States Army in the European Theater. A member of the Harvard College Class of 1947, he received his M.A. in Geography in 1950 and his Ph.D. in 1955 from Harvard University. He has held Professorships in geography at Boston University (1952-65), at Clark University (1965-78) and Hunter College (1986-96), and visiting professorships at the U.S. Naval War College, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Wellesley College and Yale University. He is the author/editor of thirteen books, of which the most recent is The Geopolitics of the World System (2003), and over 100 articles in the field of political and economic geography, Israel and Middle East geography, education and environmental perception. Regent Cohen is a recipient of professional scholarly awards including the Distinguished Geography Educator award of the National Geographic Society, five honorary degrees, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Knight Officer of the Order of the League of Merit of Italy, and Rowman & Littlefield's Author Laureate Award.

From 1964 through 1978 Professor Cohen served in various policy advisory boards of the United States Department of Education in such areas as teacher training, human resource networking, curriculum development, graduate training and the education of the disadvantaged. He has also been Executive Director of the Association of American Geographers, Geography Consultant to the National Science Foundation, Chair of Committee on Geography for the National Academy of Sciences – National Research Council, and Chair of the Consortium of Professional Associations for Improving the Teaching of Social Sciences. Dr. Cohen is Editor of the Columbia Gazetter of the World, Senior Consultant on Geography to the New Columbia Encyclopedia and Editor of the Oxford World Atlas.

While at Queens College he was instrumental in establishing the Louis Armstrong Middle School and Townsend Harris High School of the Humanities and Classics in collaboration with the New York City Board of Education. In addition, Dr. Cohen established the Environmental Training Center at Caumsett, the CUNY Law School at Queens College, the School of Education, the Aaron Copland School of Music, and a 250 million dollar college building program which included new facilities for Library, Music, Fine and Studio Arts, the Law School, Science and Townsend Harris High School.