Announcement
July 19, 2001
Dear Colleagues,
Dr. Richard McDowell has informed me that he wishes to step down from the presidency of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford effective June 30, 2002. His return to teaching and research will conclude 29 years of leadership and service to the Bradford campus, the University of Pittsburgh, and northwestern Pennsylvania. I am deeply appreciative of Dr. McDowell's very significant contributions to the University and equally appreciative of the generous help he has given me and many of our colleagues in a wide variety of activities. Thus it is only reluctantly and with deep regret that I accept his resignation.
Dr. McDowell received his baccalaureate degree at High Point College and his master's and doctorate at St. Louis University. Before joining the faculty and administration of the Bradford campus in 1970, he was a research associate at the Argonne National Laboratory.
Under President McDowell's leadership, the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has grown from a small two-year program to a four-year college with twenty-four baccalaureate degrees and three associate degrees. Its physical plant has expanded and continues to expand to accommodate the tripling of its student body to 1200 students. Its division of outreach services offers non-credit certificate and credit programs, and cooperates in operating three off-campus centers in northwestern Pennsylvania. Funding for this expansion and for increased operating budgets has come from state, private, federal, and University sources. The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Educational Fund and other endowment/quasi-endowment funds total approximately $21 million. The college has two centers that have been started in the last several years, the Allegheny Institute of Natural History and the Allegheny Research and Development Center. The school is a member of NCAA Division III, and a charter member of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. Pitt-Bradford is blessed with a strong and cooperative faculty, staff, and Advisory Board who have all worked for the common good of the college, its students, and service to the region.
I am very pleased that Dr. McDowell will continue at the campus, teaching in the Biology Department and advancing the programs of the Allegheny Institute of Natural History. A search committee will be formed in the coming weeks with the intention of identifying President McDowell's successor by next summer.
Sincerely,