Couple Establishes Scholarship at UPB

A couple who met while studying at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in the early 1970s have established a scholarship to help students who can benefit, like they did, from the benefits of a smaller campus.

John and Marie Seltzer’s gift of $5,000, matched by the Agnes L. and Lewis Lyle Thomas Scholarship Challenge, establishes the John W. and Marie R. Seltzer PBAA Fund, which will be a general fund to benefit any worthy student.

John Seltzer studied at Pitt-Bradford from 1972 to 1974, and went on to graduate from the Pittsburgh campus.

“Marie and I met there, and that’s sort of special to us,” he said. “Had I not gone to Pitt-Bradford, I don’t think I would have survived at Pitt. I wasn’t cut out for a large school. When I look back on my college years, most of my memories are of my years at Pitt-Bradford.”

It was no surprise that they met at Pitt-Bradford. They could hardly not have met, as small as the school was in those days. The entire campus consisted of the townhouses where students lived, two hangars from the campus’s days as an airport that served as the cafeteria and the student center and two classroom buildings downtown. There was a lot of hanging out, either in each other’s townhouses, at the hangar, or waiting for “The Blue Goose,” a blue school bus that took students to Hamsher House and Emery Hardware for classes.

“We were lucky if that between four of us (living in a townhouse) we had a stereo and a typewriter,” John Seltzer said. “We did not have a television. You had to go to the hangar and hope that it worked.”

Marie Seltzer ’72-’73 hadn’t planned to go to the Bradford campus. She grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and she and many of her high school friends applied to the nursing school at the Pittsburgh campus.

All of her friends were accepted at the Pittsburgh campus, but she was not. Her mother called to complain, but got nowhere. She went to Bradford for a full year, fulfilling her general education requirements, and taking courses like biology and chemistry in a much smaller environment than her friends.

By the time she went to Pittsburgh the next year, only one of her friends was still in the nursing program.

“I think it’s quite a special place,” Marie Seltzer said of Pitt-Bradford. “It’s so impressive as a campus, and we’re both testament to the fact that some kids thrive in a smaller campus.

“I think the students are excelling in the environment. It has proven to still be there for the students just like it was for us. I don’t know where I would be if I had not gone to Bradford. It proved to be life-changing.”

For more information on the Thomas Scholarship Challenge, contact Joelle Warner, manager of donor services, at jaw104@pitt.edu or (814)362-5104.

Pictured, Marie and John Seltzer with their son, Julian.
Photo courtesy of Pitt-Bradford

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