David Harold Kurtzman (January 11, 1904 – February 22, 1977) was the fourteenth

chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

(1966–1967) of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

, and the last Superintendent of Public Instruction and first

Secretary of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

(1967–1971) of the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West ...

Biography

Kurtzman became the University of Pittsburgh's vice chancellor for finance in July 1965, "at the height of a financial crisis at the University." He was appointed acting chancellor after Stanton Crawford's sudden death of a heart attack seven months later, on January 26, 1966. Kurtzman's administration negotiated the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's bailout of the university, through which the university became a state-related institution on August 23, 1966. According to his obituary, ten years later, as the university continued its search for a permanent chancellor after the bailout, "trustees were heard to say 'If Dave Kurtzman were 10 years younger, we might not be looking.' Then 63, Dr. Kurtzman was two years short of the mandatory retirement age." On January 13, 1967, the Board of Trustees announced its selection of Wesley Posvar as its new Chancellor, effective June 1, and promoted Kurtzman to the full rank of chancellor until then, and chancellor emeritus afterward. A ballroom in the university's William Pitt Union was named in his honor. Kurtzman was born near Odessa, Ukraine, in then-czarist

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, eventually immigrating to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1921. Although he did not start high school until the age of nineteen, he finished in under two years, and subsequently earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political science at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. He worked for many years at the Pennsylvania Economy League. There, he served as a key aide to David L. Lawrence, mayor of Pittsburgh, and Richard King Mellon, financier, in their effort to build the city's first renaissance after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Kurtzman joined the newly elected Governor Lawrence in 1959 in

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Harrisburg ( ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,099 as of 2020, Harrisburg is the ninth-most populous city in Pennsylvania. It is the larger of the two pr ...

as his secretary of administration. After his time at Pitt, Kurtzman returned to Harrisburg in 1967 as State Superintendent of Public Instruction (later Secretary of Education) under Governors Raymond P. Shafer and Milton Shapp; in this role he became the named respondent in the landmark

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

decision ''

Lemon v. Kurtzman ''Lemon v. Kurtzman'', 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (represented through David Kur ...

''.

References

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Kurtzman, David Chancellors of the University of Pittsburgh Secretaries of education of Pennsylvania Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Odesa Jews 1904 births 1977 deaths 20th-century American academics 20th-century Pennsylvania politicians