Wendell Eric Pritchett is an American lawyer, legal scholar, professor, and university administrator. He is currently the James S. Riepe Presidential Professor of Law and Education at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Since February 2022, Pritchett has served as interim president of the University of Pennsylvania; he is the first Black individual to serve as the university's president. 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).

Biography

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."Cover Story: Living for the City,"
''Rutgers Magazine''. Pritchett grew up in Society Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to which his family moved in 1967, and attended Friends Select School. He and his wife Anne Kringel, a native of Milwaukee, have two daughters. Kringel was the director of the legal research and writing program at the University of Pennsylvania Law School for 20 years.

Education

He earned a B.A. in Political Science from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1986. Pritchett earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1991, and became a member of the

Pennsylvania Bar The Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in Pennsylvania, United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, ...

that year. From 1991 to 1992, he worked at the law firm Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen. He earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 under the direction of

Walter Licht Walter Licht (born July 15, 1946) is an American historian who specializes in labor history, economic history, and the history of American capitalism. He is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. ...

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 The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

. 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. Pritchett served as Chancellor of Rutgers University–Camden and Professor of Law and History from 2009-14. At the time of his appointment, Pritchett became the first Black Chancellor of the university. In 2012, he was elected president of the

Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities The Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) is an organization mostly of U.S. universities located in metropolitan areas. CUMU was founded in 1989 by 10 university presidents gathered at Wright State University. CUMU is headquarte ...

. From 2014-2015, he served as interim dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and as a presidential professor. In 2017, Pritchett was named Provost of the University of Pennsylvania; he served in the role through July 2021. 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. His first book was ''Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews and the Changing Face of the Ghetto'' (University of Chicago Press, 2002). His second book was ''Robert Clifton Weaver and the American City: The Life and Times of an Urban Reformer'' (University of Chicago Press, 2008).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pritchett, Wendell Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Baruch College faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty Brown University alumni Yale Law School alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni Rutgers University–Camden 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians