| Wins against Kentucky - 1 | Losses against Kentucky - 5 |
Alma Mater: Guilford College
Date Born: November 22, 1890
Date Died: April 11, 1966
Overall Record: 5-15 [2 Seasons]

Obituary - Pittsburgh Press (April 12, 1966)

Dr. Rufus Fitzgerald, Former Chancellor, Dies at 75 Here

Guided University $50 Million Growth

Dr. Rufus H. Fitzgerald, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh for 10 years before retiring in 1955, is dead.

The 75-year old chancellor emeritus died yesterday in Presbyterian University Hospital where he had been taken after becoming ill at his Ligonier home.

When he retired after 17 years a Pitt, he summed up his 44 years as an educator and his love for work in the academic field.

"You are dealing with people who are going somewhere. The potential is tremendous."

Sense of Humor

Even while guiding Pittsburgh a 30 million dollar physical expansion and a corresponding upgrading and consolidation of academic programs, he retained a sense of humor coupled with a healthy respect for athletics.

Asked upon retirement if he got a kick out of Pitt beating Notre Dame, he replied:

"I get a kick out of Pitt betting anyone."

He was named chancellor emeritus and an ex=officio member of the board of trustees upon retirement and the board noted his retirement occurs "at a peak of educational accomplishment which seldom has been equalled in the history of higher education."

A partial list of the projects accomplished during his tenure include the $4,500,000 residence for nurses; the $1,500,000 field house; groundbreaking for the 15 million dollar building for the Schools of the Health Professions and the $2,500,000 George Hubbard Clapp Hall for Natural Sciences and the one million dollar Engineering Building.

Increased Enrollment

In addition, the university's endowment increased during his 10-year term from $3,500,000 to more than 29 million dollars. Almost every school within the university came under his personal scrutiny with an eye toward development.

The Graduate School of Public Health, School of Retailing and School of Pharmacy were integrated into the university in 1948 as part of his upgrading process.

One of his favorite preoccupations was chatting with students and he liked to point out his intense interest in their careers by noting:

"That's the most gratifying part of being an educator. No matter where you go, you eventually run into a Pitt grad . . . governors, doctors, why even Chiang Kai-shek's cabinet had two ex-Pitt men."

About 42 per cent of all Pitt graduates up to the time of his retirement - some 29,000 of 70,752 graduates between 1883 and 1955 - had received their degrees during Dr. Fitzgerald's tenure as chancellor.

First Job

His first job at Pitt in 1938 was provost (dean of administration) a position he took after serving on the faculty of Iowa State University from 1919 to 1938.

A native of North Carolina,he began his career at Mississippi Agricultural College in 1911. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Guilford College, Mississippi, and his master's degree from the University of Tennessee in 1919.

He served as vice chancellor from 1942-45 and assumed the chancellor's position when the late Dr. John Bowman retired.

With typical graciousness, Dr. Fitzgerald announced his intention to retire about a year before it was to become effective. He explained that "it seems appropriate that I tender my resignation as the university completes one great era in its development and is ready to move forward o an even greater era.

"Then years is a short period in the life of a university, but it is a substantial period in the life of a chancellor. There is a happy coincidence of my age, by best judgement, and the readiness of the university to embark on a new era of development, which gives me compelling reason to arrange at this time for an orderly transfer to a successor next year."

Man of Year

The Junior Chamber of Commerce honored him as "Man of the Year" for 1954 and cited him for "having linked the university's redevelopment with that of the City."

He earned numerous honors, among them honorary degrees from eight colleges and universities.

Dr. Fitzgerald was president of the Assn. of American Colleges and served on two commissions by appointment of former President Eisenhower - the Commission on Fine Arts and the U.S. Advisory Committee on Education Exchange.

Surviving are his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Hay Fitzgerald; two daughters, Mrs. Helen Bethel, of Denver, Colo., and Mrs. Mildred Brownies, of Marshalltown, Ia.; three brothers, Benjamin and Pual, of Pelham, N.C., and Dr. James Fitzgerald, of Richmond, Va.; and seven grandchildren.

Services will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow in Shadyside Presbyterian Church with burial to be in Danville, Va.

Friends are being received at the H. Samson Funeral Home, 537 N. Neville St., after 4 p.m. today.

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