During his six-year tenure at RPI, Harrington oversaw the implementation of five new degrees in HASS, including programs in electronic arts and game sciences, while applications to his school increased by 425 percent in the past four years. Before joining Rensselaer, Harrington served as dean of humanities and social sciences at The Cooper Union in Manhattan, another school that is focused on the sciences and engineering. Previously, he pursued a degree in Anglo-Irish studies at University College Dublin and earned his doctorate in literature at Rutgers University.

Harrington looks forward to his time at Fordham, which is “a great opportunity” to serve at a school with a more prominent focus on the arts and social sciences. While at RPI, Harrington dealt with the challenge of promoting humanities at a technological institute by tailoring programs to the mission of the university—for instance, emphasizing cognitive science, communication rather than literature, and the history of technology—as well as creating original, technologically relevant programs. “Jackson wanted me to start something new,” he explained, citing the new programs.

At Fordham, a school that already has comprehensive liberal arts offerings and students motivated to pursue them, Harrington will be instead “building a strong program into something stronger.” In addition to the priority placed on humanities, he anticipates other cultural differences at Fordham. For one, it is a Catholic university, which he believes the school’s commitment to values. He also looks forward to returning to New York City and “moving forward on redeveloping [Fordham’s] Lincoln Campus,” something that he expects to be a challenge in such an urban environment.

Fordham, a comprehensive university in Manhattan, is working to improve its science program. Harrington explained that, in a time when there has been much publicized conflict between members of the Catholic religion and current scientific practices, Fordham’s “dynamic president, Rev. Joseph McShane, is making scientific commitments and aggressively promoting scientific endeavors.”

However, the current economic climate has resulted in the university’s decision to postpone construction on a science building, causing Harrington to draw parallels between the difficult decisions being made at RPI and Fordham. Each university, he says, is practicing “triage” to save its core, even if it means temporarily reducing its breadth.

“The recession is real; it’s not a myth,” said Harrington, “and it’s touching RPI in different ways.” Though he says the non-renewal of the contracts of four faculty members in his school is “a real loss, and I feel that very strongly,” Harrington believes it was a necessary decision to preserve the Institute’s majors. Harrington is working with Provost Robert Palazzo and Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Prabhat Hajela on a portfolio of options for students wishing to pursue foreign languages. In his last few months at RPI, Harrington will be working with students as he builds this portfolio, and hopes that those interested in language options will become “active participants” in the process.