NOTABLE DEATHS ELSEWHERE

ARNOLD R. WEBER, 90

Former Northwestern University president

EVANSTON, Ill. — Arnold R. Weber, who helped Northwestern University attract top faculty and dramatically improve its finances during his more than a decade as the school’s president, has died. He was 90.

The university said in a news release that Weber, who served as the school’s 14th president from 1985 until 1994, died of natural causes at his Northbrook, Illinois, home Thursday. He was recently hospitalized for congestive lung failure, a university spokesman said.

When his retirement was announced, Weber was credited with putting the university on solid financial footing. At a time when many other universities were struggling financially, Northwestern’s assets rose from about $661 million to $1.6 billion and research grants more than doubled from $64 million to $155 million during his tenure, according to a Chicago

Tribune article on his retirement.

He was also credited with raising the university’s academic profile, both at its main campus in Evanston and in downtown Chicago, where its medical center was in the midst of a $630 million revitalization.

“Arnold Weber was an incredible leader for Northwestern and such an important figure for the University’s history, who improved Northwestern both financially and academically during his tenure,” Howard Trienens, former chair of the school’s board of trustees, said in a statement released by the school. “He also set the University on a steady path toward the international reputation it enjoys today as a research powerhouse.”

Before taking the job at Northwestern, Weber served as president of the University of Colorado for five years and on the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business.

— Associated Press