Ross Pritchard

Ross Pritchard (born 1924) served as the fourteenth chancellor of the University of Denver from 1978 to 1984. After experiencing many successes and difficulties relating to DU’s finances, enrollment, and staff relations, Pritchard was fired by the school’s board of trustees. Despite this pall cast over his tenure as chancellor, Pritchard did succeed in making many strides for the University.

Pritchard was born September 3, 1924. He married Emily Gregg in 1948, and the couple had seven children, two of which were adopted Iranian nationals. Pritchard studied at the University of Arkansas and earned both his BA and his MA in political science and history in 1951. He also played college football at Arkansas, and was drafted in the 17th round of the 1949 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins, but chose not to play professional football. The next year, he earned an MA from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and in 1954 achieved his PhD in international economics. He was appointed to the faculty of Southwestern College at Memphis, Tennessee in 1955, where he combined teaching with football coaching.

Pritchard served as co-chairman of the Regional Export Expansion Committee from 1958 to 1960 under President Eisenhower, and again from 1960 to 1962 under President Kennedy. From 1961 to 1962 he was a member of Kennedy’s National Executive Committee on Foreign Aid. Also in 1962, Pritchard left Southwestern to take a position as Special Assistant to the Director of the Peace Corps, where we worked on program review and evaluation. He was later appointed Peace Corps Director in Turkey, and served there until 1965. From 1965 to 1968, Pritchard worked as Regional Director of the Peace Corps for East Asia and the Pacific, and in 1968 joined the Development and Resource Corporation where he would eventually become Resident Manager for the firm in Iran. In 1972, he served as president of Hood College, a private women’s liberal arts school in Maryland, which he is credited with saving from bankruptcy. In 1975 he assumed the presidency of Arkansas State University, making this university more competitive with the more popular University of Arkansas. He accepted the chancellorship at DU in 1978.

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