In the end, affirmative action at the university level isn't even the answer. What is needed is to reform public education in order to eliminate the social disparities. How long will we need affirmative action? As long as K through 12 education is unequal and weak.

Q: Of all the jobs you've held in your lifetime, which was the most important to you?

A: The New York Public Library. When I got there, the library was in great decline. Yet there was no way New York could lose it. My approach was that if I failed to renew it, it would be a great martyrdom. If I succeeded, it would be a miracle.

There were wonderful people who made success possible, like Andrew Heiskell, the chairman, and Brooke Astor. The first thing we did was get rid of an ad campaign that showed the library being turned into a parking lot. Nobody wants to give to an institution that's in danger of becoming a parking lot.

Then we cleaned the front of the building, air-conditioned the library, renovated and modernized it and built hundreds of miles of stacks -- veritable catacombs -- under Bryant Park, adjoining the library. Bryant Park was a center of crime and drug dealing. One way to clear away the drug dealers was to put a fence around the library. This was the best $80,000 we ever spent. We blocked one corner for two years and it changed the path of drug dealing. Bryant Park was also dirty and bare. People stole the flowers and shrubbery. So we sent a bouquet to the Police Commissioner with a note: ''These are the last flowers that will ever be seen in Bryant Park.'' He was so impressed -- the man had never gotten flowers at the police station before -- that he assigned eight officers to protect the shrubbery.

Q: Will you be able to be as much of a showman at Carnegie?

A: I'm not a showman. I'm a missionary and a public witness -- for a cause, a message, an institution. Let me illustrate. At the New York Public Library, I got sick of hearing about how bad all our schools were. So I said, ''Why don't we celebrate at least the valedictorians of the public schools.'' I invited each valedictorian to Astor Hall and afterward had their collective picture taken on the steps of the library. It dramatized their excellence. And gradually, the politicians thought that they should be present in that picture. Soon you had borough presidents and city councilmen showing up for the ceremony. And this built support for the library. Is this showmanship -- or focusing attention on a good cause?

Q: Do you have a sense of what you would like written on your tombstone?

A: No, but I always joke that I'd like to be buried in those 90 miles of book stacks that we built under Bryant Park. It's quiet, and people will leave me alone. Besides, it's fully paid for. Anne Getty contributed more than a million dollars for the topsoil over those stacks.