Hearts of Gold

In the early 1960s, residents of Bradford undertook a kindness project that reverberates today – they decided that their young people needed a chance to go to college and get the kind of education that would lift them and their future families into the middle class. 

These community leaders could have started a scholarship fund to pay for their children’s education elsewhere, but instead they convinced the University of Pittsburgh to build a campus in Bradford, and they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars – much of it from ordinary Bradfordians giving $5 and $10 out of their paychecks – to make it possible.
Providing this gift of education is the original kindness of Pitt-Bradford, and it’s been in our campus DNA ever since.

Taking chances

Dr. Donald Swarts, the university’s first president, took chances on people. He hired professors who had never taught, like oil-field chemists Drs. Rudy and June Pfister, whose dining room table became a hub not only for tutoring, but also for students to connect with each other. And Dr.Gerry Madden, a tiny, foul-mouthed, disabled veterinarian who would pull over in her black convertible to yell at students she saw goofing off because she knew how hard their families worked to pay for their tuition.

Swarts traveled to New York City and interviewed students who had been turned down everywhere else. He took chances on them and admitted them to Pitt-Bradford.

“Pitt-Bradford opened admissions to a marginal freshman in 1964 and managed the learning process so that two years later that student was qualified to attend the University of Pittsburgh,” said Frank Rizzo ’64-’66 referring to himself.

Swarts took a chance on a hometown kid with a shiny new Ph.D. in biology to become the director of admissions. Three years later, that young man became the youngest college president in the United States at age 29 – Dr. Richard McDowell, the university’s second president.

In turn, McDowell took a chance on Dr. K. James Evans to become dean of students. Evans’ master’s degree in counseling was in constant use for 42 years, as was the box of tissues in his office, where students often went for help and comfort. Even the students called in for a scolding left feeling encouraged.

The Evans effect

With the hire of Evans, kindness became a hallmark of the Pitt-Bradford student experience. He established a culture that encouraged faculty and staff members to follow a version of the golden rule – to treat students and each other the way they would want their families to be treated.

Evans did that for Valerie Donohue Detweiler ’09 when her grandfather died. “I was really struggling with it and needed to travel six hours home to be with family for a few days,” she said. “Dean Evans stepped in and told me not to worry about a thing. He emailed my professors on my behalf and had me excused for the time I needed so that I could go home. He also checked in on me when I returned to campus.”

In another case, Evans consoled the family of a colleague. Dr. Raymond Weitekamp taught American history from the fall of 1972 until the end of the fall semester in 1978, when he was unable to go on teaching because he had colon cancer. He died the following January, when his daughter, Margaret, was 7, and son, Raymond, was 5.

“He taught until he couldn’t stand,” Dr. Margaret Weitekamp said of her father. After his death, Evans stepped in to give her mother a night or afternoon off.

“He would arrange to bring my brother and me to Pitt-Bradford basketball games, and we would sit with him in the student section, which made us feel very cool and special,” Margaret Weitekamp said.

Evans remembers it as well, and that there was always a special meal at McDonald’s with his young friends. “Those kinds of personal kindnesses really made a difference,” Margaret Weitekamp said. “He was always interested in who we were as kids. That was a very Jim Evans kind of moment.”

A little bit of home

While many think of faculty-student relationships, there has always been a group of staff members at Pitt-Bradford with an eye out for students who need help. Longtime facilities worker Jeff Armstrong loved to take city kids hunting and fishing (and when he died unexpectedly in 2015, then-Arts Director Patty Colosimo and President Livingston Alexander arranged his memorial service in the KOA Arena on behalf of his stricken widow, Harriet.). Staff develop tight bonds with their student workers and provide a steady touch of home for them.

“During my freshman year, when I was trying very hard not to be homesick, there was a sweet little lady who worked in the Pitt Stop (Luella ‘Lu’ Julian). That woman helped me survive those first months just by being the kind maternal soul she was,” wrote Tammarrah Miles Love ’01. “She was never not smiling. She remembered my name and the coffee I liked. I would go in there with one of the first friends I made. Lu had a way of listening to us talk about classes, professors, our boyfriends and families like she was a peer but could seamlessly shift gears to offer advice or comfort in a way that was maternal. Every conversation with her was easy, healing and joyful.”

More than a pep talk

Pitt-Bradford faculty take the success of their students seriously. This means they inspire, nurture and, yes, push their students to reach their potential.

There was Dr. Vince Kohler, who would personally show up in a residence hall to knock on the door of an oversleeping student, and Dr. Michael Stuckart, who would correct
students’ grammar so that people would not judge students negatively by the way they spoke.

For Maya Bingaman ’19, a professor gave her a literal lift. “When I was in an intro to public relations class, Peta Leitermann-Long drove me four-plus hours to visit Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, and she showed me around the city and treated me to lunch,” she wrote. “I applied … and was accepted to Newhouse (for graduate school),
and now my career is focused on PR.”

For Kristina Luzzi ’92, kindness was a well-timed pep talk. “I had dropped out of Slippery Rock (University) and was in that in-between space — trying to find myself, trying to figure out what was next,” she said. “I talked myself into taking just one class at Pitt-Bradford, thinking it might help me get back into the game. John Broderick was my professor, and one afternoon he sat me down in his office and talked to me – not at me. He told me my life was wide open. That I had a choice. That I could use my voice, trust my talents and finish what I had started. That conversation changed everything.

“Because of that moment, I registered as a full-time student, finished my degree and earned my B.A. in public relations. Without his encouragement that day, I truly don’t know if I would have followed through or found my voice in the way I eventually did. That afternoon was a turning point in my life, at a moment when I needed those words more than I knew. I’m forever grateful for my time at Pitt-Bradford, and especially for a professor who saw something in me before I fully saw it myself.”

Thanks to all who shared stories with us. We’d love to hear more. Share yours
by emailing us at Portraits@pitt.edu. Use the subject line “Kindness.”