During the last semester of his presidency, a wire from his
pacemaker poked a hole in his heart, causing him to nearly faint during an emergency drill being conducted on campus at the time. He underwent
open heart surgery soon thereafter. Under different conditions emergency medical personnel might not have been able to respond in time to save him.[9]
Likins was elected a member of the
National Academy of Engineering (1984) for contributions to spacecraft dynamics and control, and for leadership in engineering education through teaching, research, writing, and academic administration.[citation needed]
^During his administration at Lehigh, he and the
ReverendJohn E. Brooks,
S.J. of the
College of the Holy Cross were the two university presidents contacted by the
Ivy League in the first stage of the formation of the
Patriot League during the early-1980s (Feinstein, John. The Last Amateurs. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 2000). This effectively removed Lehigh from contention for a Division I-AA playoff berth.