University Times

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, Dec. 20, for David E. Engel, professor emeritus in the School of Education and former president of both the University Senate and the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education. Engel died Dec. 3, 1999, at his home in Boston, after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 71.

Though Engel grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and retired to New England, Pittsburgh and Pitt loomed large in his life. Donald Martin, a faculty member in administrative and policy studies in the School of Education, recalls when Engel was being recruited for a dean's position at another university. An acquaintance of Martin's asked him to persuade Engel to take the position. "But Dave said, 'No, we like Pittsburgh,'" Martin recalled. He added that with Engel's personal and professional characteristics, he would have made an ideal dean.

Martin, who co-authored a book with Engel, described his friend and former colleague as someone who thrived on work, had a great deal of integrity, who "always got the job done." Martin added: "He was a top guy."

Engel earned an A.B. at Wesleyan University in 1949, a master's in divinity from Union theological Seminary in 1952, a master's in theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1957 and his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1967.

Before joining the Pitt faculty in 1967 as an assistant professor in the School of Education, he served as a minister; as a chaplain at Syracuse University and Warren Wilson College, where he was also an instructor; as a writer and anchor for a Syracuse television program on "Religion and the Arts," and as a lecturer at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Administration.

During his tenure at Pitt he also served as director of Foundations of Education in the School of Education, as a Buhl Foundation fellow at the Learning Research and Development Center, and as an affiliate faculty member in the religious studies department.

Among his honors were a distinguished service award from The Council of the Great City Schools in Washington, D.C.; Distinguished Service to Education Award from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association; a Danforth Foundation grant for graduate study, and Theta Chi Beta, a religious studies honorary at Syracuse.

Among his community activities, Engel was a member of the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education from 1979 to 1985, serving as president of the board for the year 1982-83.

He served as chair of education's Faculty Council in 1976-77, and as president of the University Senate in 1979-80.

Engel is survived by his wife, Margaret Foster Loizeaux Engel; three children, Stephen, Alexandra Edgecombe and Peter, and two granddaughters.