St. Joe’s loses a familiar face

After 54 years as a faculty member at Saint Joseph’s University, George Prendergast, Ph.D., is retiring from his position as professor and chair of the economics department.

This past Saturday, students from the Economic Society, led by Mark Fanelli, ’10, hosted a retirement party for Prendergast at the university’s Boat House in Philadelphia. Approximately 100 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and members of Prendergast’s family were in attendance.

“I was overwhelmed by the fact that the students, on their own, would do this,” Prendergast said of Saturday’s student-led party. “The administration’s got to have a dinner for people at the university who are retiring…which is very nice, and all that. But the students who organized the party was sort of non plus and did the whole thing. I used to think I was something of a hard nose…”

While Fanelli hasn’t had Prendergast for a course at St. Joe’s, his “experience with him has been in the office as a mentor, long talks about advice on moving forward with graduate programs and law school and his personal experience of not letting obstacles, whether it’s physical or mental or someone telling you no is getting in the way, achieving what you want.”

Cary Anderson, Ed.D., vice president for student life at Saint Joseph’s University, said that it was the first time in his tenure at St. Joe’s that he had seen students throw a retirement party for a faculty member.

While there was some push and pull between students and the administration over where the event would take place and whether or not alcohol would be served, Anderson said that his office was supportive of Saturday’s event.

“To me the most important thing was to have an event to continue to honor Dr. Pendergast and to meet the university’s needs of what we are trying to do,” Anderson said.

For Prendergast, retirement from Saint Joseph’s comes with many memories, challenges, and a lot of good timing.

“I think I’m the longest serving faculty member at St. Joe’s now,” Prendergast said. “I think I may be the longest-serving faculty member in the history of Saint Joseph's University. And that’s not so much about me; it’s really about laws.”

According to Prendergast, as Social Security retirement laws changed throughout the years, his own need to retire continued to be delayed.

In addition to his 54 years as a faculty member at the university, Prendergast also spent four years on Hawk Hill as an undergraduate student.

A member of the Class of 1955, Prendergast had difficulty settling on a career after graduating. Unlike many men who joined the armed forces immediately after donning their cap and gown, an eye-injury from his youth prevented him from finding a position in the Navy or Air Force.

Before traveling in Europe for three months after graduation, Prendergast met with a Jesuit at St. Joe’s with the aim of gaining contacts with the Society of Jesus in Europe. Instead, the Jesuit offered him a position at St. Joe’s in the fall as an accounting teacher.

“So I got a scholarship that I never asked for and then I got a job that I didn’t ask for,” Prendergast said of his teaching position at Saint Joseph’s University.

Prendergast was hired in an era in which deans made employment decisions rather than search committees. After signing a contract for employment, Prendergast left the States to travel during the summer in Europe as planned. He eventually earned his masters and doctoral degrees.

According to Prendergast, his relationship with St. Joe’s has been a long and fruitful one.

“I’ve been at St. Joe’s, basically, my entire adult life,” Prendergast said.

In his nearly six decades at Saint Joseph's University, Prendergast has witnessed dramatic changes to the school’s landscape and population.

“This was a whole different world [back then],” Prendergast said. “At that time, Saint Joseph’s College was just Barbelin-Lonergan. That was it, pretty much. There was an old government building where Mandeville was now that they knocked down… [A friend and I] were given the job of helping knock the building down and pull the windows out… We had to pull it down with cables, but we couldn’t budge the damn thing. So finally they brought a bulldozer over, knocked it down, and that’s where Mandeville is today.”

For Fanelli, Prendergast’s retirement will be another noticeable change at St. Joe’s.

“There’s obviously going to be a tremendous void. The man’s taught for 54 years, he’s been at this school and seen it evolve from a commuter status to the school being on Maguire; it’s been really transformational. The department has grown in numbers since then, and the number of courses offered has grown as well,” Fanelli said.

Prendergast said he hopes retirement will be a decision he “won’t regret.” But the long-time fixture at St. Joe’s also recognizes the unpredictability of life, even at age 77.

“I always tell my students that life has a way of turning out differently than you thought it would have. Be alert to opportunity. You never know when opportunity will knock,” Prendergast said. “It knocked a couple of times in my life, and most of the time I answered the door.”