Walter J. Gershenfeld, 84, management professor

Walter J. Gershenfeld, 84, of Center City, a labor arbitrator and mediator and emeritus professor of management at Temple University, died of a heart attack Thursday at his home.

Dr. Gershenfeld served on Temple's Fox School of Business faculty for more than 40 years.

For more than 50 years, he helped negotiate labor contracts and mediate disputes, including those between teachers and area school districts, police and the City of Philadelphia, and the city and its white- and blue-collar workers.

In 2003, he wrote about his profession in a commentary in the Philadelphia Daily News. "Arbitrators have to present a reasoned decision. An attempt to 'split the baby' is obvious and not acceptable to management or labor," he said.

Dr. Gershenfeld and his wife, Gladys Rosen Gershenfeld, who is also an arbitrator, were founding members of the Philadelphia chapter of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA). He was past president of LERA and of the National Academy of Arbitrators. He was the recipient of the George W. Taylor Award from the American Arbitration Association and the LERA Lifetime Achievement Award.

After earning a doctorate in economics, Dr. Gershenfeld joined the faculty at Temple in 1964. Besides his teaching duties, he held administrative positions.

As president of Temple's faculty senate, he helped restore the pensions of professors who lost their jobs at Temple during the McCarthy era.

From 1982 to 1984, he was acting dean of the Ambler Campus and helped revive the Temple University Music Festival.

He was a visiting professor at the University of the West Indies and was a visiting research fellow at Oxford University.

Dr. Gershenfeld served on the board of the William Jeanes Memorial Library in Lafayette Hill, and was active in the Jewish Employment and Vocational Service, the Alliance for Education in Dispute Resolution, the Concerned Citizens of Center City, and Congregation Or Hadash in Fort Washington.

In recent years, he contributed numerous letters to the editor and commentary articles to The Inquirer and the Daily News on subjects that included the Mideast, Afghanistan, health care, Social Security, presidential elections, and sports.

Dr. Gershenfeld, who grew up in South Philadelphia, told an Inquirer reporter in 2005 that he had been going to Eagles games since the 1930s, when the team played at Municipal Stadium and children got in for a dime when accompanied by an adult.

"He was passionate about politics, sports, and civic affairs in Philadelphia," said a son, Joel.

Dr. Gershenfeld graduated from South Philadelphia High School. During World War II, he served in the Army on Saipan and Iwo Jima.

After his discharge as a sergeant, he earned a bachelor's degree from Temple.

While pursuing graduate studies, he worked for the Wage Stabilization Board and for the shipbuilders union in Philadelphia. He was in Washington on union business when he met his future wife. They married in 1955.

Dr. Gershenfeld had loved horse racing since his teens. He enjoyed winter vacations in Florida and travel, and he and his wife were subscribers to the Philadelphia Orchestra and members of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Gershenfeld is survived by sons Neil and Alan, and six grandchildren.

A funeral will be at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael Sacks Memorial Chapel, 6410 N. Broad St.