Robert Wood

Robert Wood was a professor of political science at MIT and Undersecretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1965 to 1969, where he played a central role in developing the Fair Housing Act of 1968. While leading the Center, he was was appointed chairman of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority and of MIT’s Political Science Department. From 1970 to 1977, he served as president of the University of Massachusetts system, and from 1978 to 1980 he was superintendent of Boston Public Schools. He was a professor at Wesleyan University from 1981 until 1993 and wrote several books, including Suburbia: Its People and Their Politics, 1400 Governments: The Political Economy of the New York Metropolitan Region (co-authored with Vladimir Almendinger), and The Necessary Majority: Middle America and the Urban Crisis.