University Times

Four hundred of H.J. Zoffer's closest friends, colleagues and family members paid tribute to Pitt's "dean of deans" Oct. 10 at the Pittsburgh Hilton, Downtown. Zoffer retired this summer after 28 years as dean of the Katz Graduate School of Business.

Speakers swapped "Jerry stories," poking fun at Zoffer's workaholism, his relentless fundraising and politicking on behalf of his school, and his penchant for mixed metaphors — allegedly, Zoffer once vowed that some unwanted development would never occur "until a zebra changes its spots." One of Zoffer's fellow deans, Randy Juhl of the pharmacy school (who referred to himself as "one of Jerry's Kids") pointed out that during Zoffer's tenure, Pitt's 15 other schools had 75 deans among them.

Chancellor Mark Nordenberg recalled an evening two years ago, when a snowstorm forced Pitt to cancel classes for the following day. Nordenberg, as interim provost, notified each dean by phone. It was late evening by the time he called Zoffer. But Zoffer's wife Maye told Nordenberg that the dean wasn't at home; he was out meeting with a prospective donor. "You can imagine," Nordenberg said, "the fear that must have existed in the heart of that poor person, trapped in the middle of a blizzard with 'Never Take No For An Answer' Jerry Zoffer as his companion!" Other speakers noted the business school's growth under Zoffer's leadership: moving from cramped quarters in the Cathedral of Learning to Mervis Hall, re-establishing the undergraduate College of Business Administration, raising money for 10 endowed chairs and a $25 million endowment, and — just this fall — earning a No. 12 ranking in the Gourman Report's survey of MBA programs at the nation's 750 business schools. This month, Business Week magazine rated the Katz School's MBA program as the best value for the money in a survey of 51 programs. n Zoffer told the crowd that those and other accomplishments "go to show you that you can accomplish almost anything if you live long enough, complain with vigor, importune suffiently and trot your little cup around town with determination and chutzpah." As for the tribute dinner, Zoffer said: "At least I will not have to go to my own funeral now. It would clearly be an anticlimax. Every exaggeration known to man and woman, every epithet available in the lexicon, every distortion conceived by fertile imaginations, and every revisionist interpretation of history has been trotted out tonight and dumped upon a gullible public — although I must admit, I could get used to it, having had so little of it over the past three decades!"

— Bruce Steele