Homecoming: Nordenberg reflects on chancellorship, envisions return to classroom

Mark Nordenberg has not always been known as “chancellor.” In fact, 18 years ago, as a professor in Pitt’s School of Law, he was known by a much different name — Sparky.

“It was because he had such a spark and liveliness in him,” said Ken Gormley, dean and professor at Duquesne University School of Law and former Pitt law professor who, at the start of his career in the ’80s, met Nordenberg in the department.

During a Board of Trustees meeting in June, Nordenberg announced his decision to step down as the Chancellor of the University beginning August 2014. Before assuming the position in 1995 and serving as Pitt’s 17th chancellor, Nordenberg held several University positions, including professor at the School of Law, chair of the law school’s Appointments Committee, dean of the School of Law, interim provost and senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs. Now he anticipates a return to the classroom.

Nordenberg, who said he had been thinking about leaving the chancellor position for a number of years, also said he knew that “it couldn’t go on forever,” but a number of challenges, including University budget issues, kept him tied to Pitt.

“Once things were somewhat more stable, it seemed to me that I almost owed it to Pitt to say, ‘You ought to start looking for someone to succeed me and someone who will hopefully have a long and productive tenure,’” Nordenberg said.

Professor Nordenberg

Nordenberg first joined the law school faculty in 1977, and he has always intended to remain in the city and at the University. Leaving, it turns out, was never an option he considered.

“There have been opportunities at almost every point in my long Pitt career to go somewhere else, and I have always said I’m not even really interested in talking,” he said. “This is where I want to be.” 

Although Nordenberg said that he anticipates  returning to teaching, he hasn’t thought specifically about making such plans yet. He also said that “it isn’t such an automatic thing to say [he’ll] retool and go back to teaching the same thing [he] was almost 20 years ago.”

From the perspectives of those who taught with him, though, Nordenberg should be able to transition back to the classroom with relative ease. 

Nordenberg received a number of teaching awards during his tenure. He received the Student Bar Association Award for Excellence in Teaching at the School of Law in 1984, and he was the first winner of the award, selected by members of the law school’s graduating class as the professor they felt was most deserving.

The chancellor’s urge to return to the classroom, Gormley said, sets Nordenberg apart because some retiring chancellors “reach their peak and are put out to pasture.”  

Law professor Ron Brand, who met the chancellor when he was the chair of the law school Faculty Appointments Committee that interviewed Brand for a faculty position in 1981, said that whatever Nordenberg chooses to do after stepping down will benefit the University. If the decision leads him back to a law school classroom, says Brand, then Nordenberg is likely to, once again, contend for teaching awards. His future, though, holds various options.

“His experience as chancellor, however, may make him better positioned to contribute by teaching policy courses that cut across disciplines within the University,” Brand said. “I am sure law students would benefit from such courses with other graduate and professional students.”

Pitt law professor Harry Flechtner, who met Nordenberg in 1983, said  the fact that his time at the University has aligned with Nordenberg’s work at the University “has been a phenomenally lucky break” for him, and he was “elated for the students of the University” when he heard of Nordenberg’s plans to return to the classroom. 

Gormley and Flechtner agreed with Brand, affirming that Nordenberg’s skills as a professor set him apart from other members of the Department of Law. 

Gormley said that Nordenberg would know the list of his 90-plus students’ names, without cheating, in a matter of days.

“I still haven’t figured out how to do that,” he said. 

Not only did the chancellor remember the student’s name and class, but even knew where the student sat in the classroom, among other details. 

“Almost every time I have been with Mark in public, former students of his have approached him to praise and thank him for his teaching,” Flechtner said. 

Gormley said that he received “a lot of candid intel” about Nordenberg from students because he was such a young professor, and there was no question that Nordenberg was the best.

Nordenberg’s academic specialty is in civil litigation, and he has served on the U.S. Advisory Committee on Rules of Civil Procedure and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Civil Procedural Rules Committee. 

Although most students finish school with a limited understanding of civil procedure — the topic of a law course taught by Nordenberg —— Nordenberg was able to bring clarity to something inherently difficult to understand. This was because he was a tough and demanding teacher, but always respectful of students and able to put them at ease, Gormley said.

The same qualities were key to the chancellorship and played a role in connecting students, faculty, staff and alumni as the face of the University.

A University resource

Brand remembered the chancellor picking him up in the Nordenberg family’s station wagon for his first on-campus interview.

“Then, as now, he impressed me more with his ability to make a stranger feel comfortable than with any pretense of authority,” he said. 

The personal connections that Nordenberg forges with others in the University setting and his connection to the region and alumni suits him distinctly to act as a chancellor emeritus, Gormley added. 

Flechtner, who, like Gormley, was a neighbor to Nordenberg when his family lived in Regent Square, said he and the chancellor often car pooled home after work.

“You get to know someone quite well through years of waiting in traffic near the intersection of Braddock and Forbes,” he said, adding that the most impressive thing was getting to know the chancellor personally.   

Nordenberg said he wants to make himself available to his successor to provide help, adding that the amount of involvement will depend on his or her wishes. 

As the Board of Trustees’ Search Committee continues its nationwide search for the chancellor’s successor, Nordenberg plans to continue to move the University forward in his final year. 

Pushing forward

Nordenberg said that the remainder of this year will, in many respects, resemble the years that have come before it. He does, however, expect to deliver more targeted presentations to alumni groups around the country, focus on fundraising issues and continue to develop governmental relations in the best way possible for his successor.

This will be a challenge, he said, because life will not slow down, but his eyes are focused on the future.

“In a job like this you need to keep pushing forward. If you spend too much time dwelling on things that may have been done differently, then you aren’t going to be able to maintain the pace moving forward,” he said. 

As the Board of Trustees continues to search for the chancellor’s replacement — what Vice Chancellor for Communications Ken Service referred to as one of the most important decisions a Board of Trustees at a major American university can make — Nordenberg said that he does not intend to make any recommendation or play a role in the selection. 

Instead, he will work to position the University in the best way possible for the future. 

Most of all, though, Gormley said that Nordenberg deserves something he hasn’t received for more than 18 years years — a break.

“Mark is literally one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met, and I hope the Board [of Trustees] gives him time to catch his breath before using him as a wonderful resource,” he said. 

But the chancellor doesn’t intend to slow down anytime soon.

“Doing meaningful work has been one of life’s great satisfactions for me, and so I do expect to remain professionally engaged,” Nordenberg said.