I-House Remembers Trustee Paul D. Carter (1934-2023)

Paul D. Carter, who served as an active member of the I-House Board of Trustees for four decades, died February 12, 2023 at his home in Ridgewood, NJ, at age 88.

A longtime senior administrator at Columbia University, Carter was a vital link between I-House and Columbia, where he served in positions including Provost and Executive Vice President of Administration for more than 30 years before his retirement in 1994.

Columbia had been represented on the I-House board since 1924, by trustees including Carter’s predecessor Harvey Picker, who was Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. By the time of Carter’s election in December 1977, public safety was a chief concern among institutions in Morningside Heights, and he was a critical conduit on these issues, and later when Columbia’s International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO) located to I-House North in the early 1990s.

As a trustee, Carter was a longtime member of the House Committee, which he chaired from to 1987 to 1994, and the Personnel Practices Committee, which he led from 1999 until 2013. In both capacities, he was a member of the Executive Committee.

“Paul was one of a generation of trustees who led the board very capably and loyally for many years,” said longtime trustee William D. Rueckert. “He has been and will be greatly missed.”

Carter was especially close to I-House President Donald L. Cuneo. The two were elected to the board at the same meeting, on December 1, 1977, and Carter stepped down from the board on June 13, 2013, Cuneo’s last meeting as president. Carter was elected a life trustee but continued to serve on the Personnel Practices Committee until 2017, forty years after first joining the board.

Carter and his late wife Betsy were frequent guests at Sunday Suppers and other I-House events before her death in 2009.

Arrangements for a memorial service are pending. A full obituary may be found here.