Kenneth Patton Steps Down as NYU Schack Institute Divisional Dean

D. Kenneth Patton has stepped down as divisional dean of the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate at NYU-SCPS after leading the Institute to preeminence in its field of professional education over the past decade. He will continue to be associated with the Institute while pursuing other interests.

NYU-SCPS Dean Robert Lapiner said Patton’s accomplishments “earned the unwavering support and enthusiasm of the real estate and construction industry elite. Ken Patton has served as the lynchpin in nurturing our relationship with the industry, persuading top-tier professionals to serve as mentors, educators, advisory board members, and full participants, resulting in academic offerings that have earned widespread recognition for their comprehensive depth and quality,” Lapiner continued.

Dean Patton became director of the Institute in 1998 and was appointed the Klara and Larry Silverstein Chair in Real Estate Development the same year. Among many achievements, his tenure at the Institute’s helm was marked by the addition of a Master of Science in Construction Management degree program; a more than threefold increase in graduate program enrollments to about 700; growth of noncredit education enrollment from approximately 4,000 to more than 7,200; and development of a full-time faculty with 10 members currently. In 1998, the NYU REIT Center, dedicated to study and research on real estate investment trusts, was founded. The Institute’s sponsored lectures, seminars, and events—in particular, annual conferences on REITs and Real Estate Capital Markets—have placed the Institute at the center of the industry’s learning and discussions on important trends and issues.

The Schack Institute has become a truly international institution under Patton’s leadership. The graduate programs in real estate and construction management now draw students from 30 countries, and affiliations have been forged with the University of Amsterdam, the Technical University of Berlin, and Renmin University in Beijing.

The broad goals set and reached during his years as divisional dean, Patton said, were to place the Schack Institute at the “intellectual focal point for the industry on all matters and the front of the pack on real estate finance, and to become national and international in our mission.”

Previously, Patton served as New York City’s first deputy mayor for economic development during the administration of Mayor John Lindsay; president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s leading trade association; chairman of Governor Hugh Carey’s Transition Task Force on Transportation; chairman of the National Council on Urban Economic Development; and senior vice president and director of operations at Helmsley-Spear.