Penn professor named Rutgers-Camden chancellor

Rutgers University yesterday named a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor the next chancellor of Rutgers University-Camden.

Wendell E. Pritchett, 44, was Mayor Nutter's policy director and deputy chief of staff last year before returning to Penn, where he teaches property, land use, and urban policy.

He also is president of the Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. and vice chairman of the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia.

Pritchett will start at Rutgers on June 30. As chancellor, he will be chief executive officer of Rutgers-Camden, which has an annual budget of $50 million, according to the university.

The campus, with 1,000 employees, enrolls 5,600 students in 34 undergraduate programs and 16 graduate programs.

"Wendell Pritchett is an outstanding choice who will help the Camden campus continue to grow as a national leader in teaching, research, and service," Rutgers president Richard L. McCormick said in a statement. "He brings vision and energy to the role of chancellor, as well as a keen perspective on how higher-education institutions can become critical partners in the advancement of a city and a region."

"It's a great job," Pritchett said. "It's a great place with terrific faculty, students, and staff. I'm really looking forward to working with all of them."

His goals include increasing undergraduate and graduate enrollment, then expanding the faculty and staff while adding programs.

"We can leverage those resources to help the city of Camden," he said, by helping to bring in commercial establishments such as restaurants and connecting professors and students with the community.

Pritchett will be the first African American chancellor for Rutgers. He said he believed his race was relevant in a city where many people feel they have been discriminated against.

A Philadelphia native, Pritchett grew up in Center City, and his parents worked for the city's public schools. He attended Friends Select School and credits the Quaker school and his family with instilling in him a desire to serve the public.

"I've always been really interested in cities and how they're organized, how they operate, what their problems are," he said.

Colleagues were effusive in their praise for Pritchett.

"I am ecstatic," Nutter said. "I can think of no more well-deserving person than Wendell to have such a high honor."

The mayor added, "I was proud to have him work on my campaign and in our administration.

"He's a great guy - easy to work with, easy to talk to, and fully dedicated and committed to whatever he's involved in."

Others also cited Pritchett's people skills.

"Wendell has a rare blend of what I think are academic credentials and an engaging way with people so that people feel valued," said lawyer Dick Hayden, a senior adviser to Nutter's 2007 mayoral campaign.

Pritchett excelled at bringing people with different perspectives to a consensus, Hayden added. Even during the heated primary, he said, "you could always count on Wendell to keep his cool."

Sarah Barringer Gordon, a professor of constitutional law and history at Penn, said Pritchett cared deeply about cities and students.

"He has an incredible breadth of experience both in politics, in policy, and in scholarly life," Gordon said. "He really is, I think, perfectly poised to make a difference."

Pritchett is very popular among Penn students, she said.

"He's extremely sought after as a professor, and his students admire and really like him. They feel comfortable with him," she said. "He's someone who can talk to everybody."

Pritchett has taught at Penn since 2001 and was associate dean at Penn Law from 2006 to 2008. He came to Penn from Baruch College of the City University of New York.

He has written two books, Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer, a biography of the first African American cabinet secretary, and Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto.

Pritchett lives in University City with his wife and two daughters.

He received his bachelor's degree from Brown University, his law degree from Yale University, and his Ph.D. in history from Penn.

Pritchett succeeds Roger Dennis, who retired in 2007. Margaret Marsh, dean of the Rutgers-Camden faculty of arts and sciences, has served as interim chancellor.