(Editor’s note: A book chronicling the 50-year history of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has been published, and current president Dr. Livingston Alexander and former president Dr. Richard E. McDowell will autograph copies at a book signing event slated to begin at 2 p.m. today at the Frame-Westerberg Commons building on campus. The event will begin with brief remarks by Alexander and McDowell in the Commons’ first floor lobby. Following the remarks, the duo will move to the Panther Shop, where they will sign books.)
Writing the history of an institution demands a particular type of story-telling ability. By definition, the institution is always the focus. People, some of whom play a great role in the development of the place, are not always in the forefront.
But stories of bricks and mortar are flat-out boring. It is the blend of the institution and its environment — human and physical — that is the key to an interesting institutional history. That’s where author Sherie L. Mershon excels in her “A History of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.”
The story begins in the early 1960s with the fortuitous conjunction of local desires for higher education in the region and a University of Pittsburgh Chancellor with an expansionist outlook, Edward H. Litchfield. After some fits and starts, the university settled on three towns for the establishment of two-year regional campuses, Bradford, Titusville and Greensburg.
Starting with offices and classrooms in the Hamsher House, the campus experienced rapid student growth, due both to local demand and the aggressive out-of-area recruiting by Pitt-Bradford’s first President, Dr. Donald Swarts. This led to the acquisition of the Emery Hotel as a dormitory and plans for expansion of the campus in the area between the Bradford Hospital and downtown. When this plan met with resistance from residents of the Third Ward, attention shifted to an undeveloped area west of town, gradually including the “Onofrio Tract,” where the athletic fields are presently located, and the Harri Emery Airfield further west.
The building of the campus and its subsequent development as a four-year college with its own identity form the book’s central story. In reading the history from the 70s through to the 21st Century, one is struck with a recurring pattern. At each stage along the way — developing a physical space, adopting four-year programs, slogging through economic hard times, achieving a “critical mass” of students — a period of uncertainty is followed by a plan to meet the challenge and success ensues. From beginning to end, it reads like a kind of Hegelian triumphalism.
As with any successful institution, the history of Pitt-Bradford is marked by strong leadership. Presidents Donald Swarts, Richard E. McDowell, and Livingston Alexander all figure prominently in the book, as do many community leaders who served on the Pitt-Bradford Advisory Board and contributed to the financial strength of the campus. Faculty leaders, including division chairs and the Faculty Senate, figure less prominently in this account, which is based mainly on Advisory Board files, Presidential files, and records at the Pittsburgh campus.
“A History of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford” will be an entertaining read for anyone who has had any association with the college or, for that matter, with Bradford in general. It evokes the nostalgia of an earlier age in the city’s history and the can-do attitude of the 1960s in higher education. It highlights the lives of notable locals like Bob Laing and Tullah Hanley. Photographs of people and places are bound to elicit personal memories of exciting past events.
Sometimes the record of the past is a blueprint for the future. If there is any lesson to be learned from a history of Pitt-Bradford’s first half-century, it is that institutional leaders must recognize the necessity for change and be prepared to adapt. That has been a source of strength in Bradford all along. In her final chapter, Mershon discusses new technologies, programs, and methods of delivery of classes that indicate the college is approaching the next 50 years with the same verve and determination that marked the last 50.
