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Wendell Eric Pritchett is an American legal scholar and academic. He is currently the James S. Riepe Presidential Professor of Law and Education at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. From February to June 2022, Pritchett served as interim president of the University of Pennsylvania; he is the first Black individual to serve as the university's president.[1][2]

Quick Facts Interim President of the University of Pennsylvania, Preceded by ...
Wendell E. Pritchett
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Interim President of the University of Pennsylvania
In office
February 2022  June 2022
Preceded byAmy Gutmann
Succeeded byM. Elizabeth Magill
30th Provost of the University of Pennsylvania
In office
July 1, 2017  July 1, 2021
Preceded byVincent Price
Chancellor of Rutgers University–Camden
In office
June 30, 2009  July 1, 2014
Preceded byRoger Dennis
Succeeded byPhoebe A. Haddon
Personal details
Born
Wendell Eric Pritchett
Education
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Pritchett previously served as Chancellor of Rutgers University–Camden (2009–2014), Interim Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (2014-2015), and Provost of the University of Pennsylvania (2017–2022).

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Early life and education

Pritchett's father, also named Wendell Pritchett, was a classical pianist and public school teacher, and his mother Carolyn was a high school English teacher.[3][4] Pritchett grew up in Society Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to which his family moved in 1967, and attended Friends Select School.[3][5] He and his wife Anne Kringel, a native of Milwaukee, have two daughters.[5][4] Kringel was the director of the legal research and writing program at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for 20 years.[6]

He earned a B.A. in Political Science from Brown University in 1986.[7] Pritchett earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1991, and became a member of the Pennsylvania Bar that year.[8] From 1991 to 1992, he worked at the law firm Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen.[9] He earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 under the direction of Walter Licht.[10][11]

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Career

For five years, from 1997 to 2002, Pritchett was an assistant professor of history at Baruch College of the City University of New York.[7]

Pritchett was a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor from 2001 to 2009, and is the Presidential Professor of Law and Education at the school.[10]

Pritchett served as Chancellor of Rutgers University–Camden and Professor of Law and History from 2009-14.[12][13] At the time of his appointment, Pritchett became the first Black Chancellor of the university.[14]

In 2012, he was elected president of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities.[10][15] From 2014-2015, he served as interim dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and as a presidential professor.[10][8][16]

In 2017, Pritchett was named Provost of the University of Pennsylvania; he served in the role through July 2021.[8][17]

Pritchett has written two books and many articles on urban history and policy, especially in the areas of housing, race relations, land use, and economic development.[10] His first book was Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews and the Changing Face of the Ghetto (University of Chicago Press, 2002).[10][8] His second book was Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer (University of Chicago Press, 2008).[10]

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References

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