Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. is a former president of Yale University, serving from 1986 to 1992 as the sixteenth president of the college. He is the current chairman of the City University of New York Board of Trustees. Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Yale (disambiguation). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1992 was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The City University of New York (CUNY; acronym usually pronounced kyoo-nee or coo-nee), located in New York City, is the largest urban university in the United States, with more than 198,000 enrolled in degree programs, about 20,000 enrolled in non-degree programs and more than 200...

Benno Schmidt's father was Benno Schmidt, Sr., who coined the term "venture capital." With John "Jock" Hay Whitney, Schmidt, Sr. started, in 1946, what became the first venture capital firm in the U.S., J.H. Whitney & Co.

Jock Whitney served as Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation. In part owing to this fact, Whitney lobbied and succeeded in gaining the support of Corporation members in appointing Schmidt, Jr. to the presidency.

Schmidt raised over a billion dollars for Yale, but despite his success, members of the faculty, both then and now, complained that he was never on campus. Placards stood outside Woodbridge Hall saying, "Where's Benno?" As part of his agreement to serve, he maintained a primary residence in New York City. There are many faculty-members today, however, who were present during the Scmidt years who would disagree vociferously with this perception and remember President Schmidt as a very accessible president.