Ralph Rishel is not a name most locals would associate with Binghamton University.
But for many of its early years, Rishel was director of admissions for then-Harpur College. In that role he served to both market the then fledgling school and identify and admit quality students as it sought to become, in the words of its president, Glenn Bartle, “a public Swarthmore.”
The Rishel name emerged from my memory bank when The New York Times published an article July 14 dealing with the admission policies currently in place for the city’s nine select high schools. For the uninitiated, those schools admit students based on their scores on the demanding Specialized High Schools Admission Test and, as the Times story noted, “Gaining entrance to the schools has been perceived as a path out of poverty and a gateway to the nation’s top colleges and, perhaps, a flourishing career.”
What is true today was true in the 1950s when Bartle appointed Rishel, an ex-Army officer, to oversee Harpur’s admissions efforts. Among his first objectives, Rishel developed working relationships with guidance officers at two NYC special high schools, Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
When I joined the Harpur faculty in 1963, Rishel came to my attention when each fall Bartle afforded Ralph star status at the opening faculty meeting. There Ralph would smugly announce that once again the incoming student class average was well into the 90s. What faculty members wouldn’t have loved teaching such intelligent and motivated students!
It was also in 1963 that Harpur College opted to experiment with a year-round trimester calendar system. Its success depended on attracting students to its first and untraditional July-October semester (by the fall of 1967 the experiment ended).
And so, as the new soccer coach, I sought to aid the cause and mailed return post cards to high school soccer coaches throughout the state, asking them for leads on talented players.
Well, one day, a card arrived from the coach at Stuyvesant with such a recommendation. Unaware of Rishel’s groundwork, I phoned the Harpur admissions office and asked how I might proceed.
Not minutes later I received a phone call from Ralph Rishel upbraiding me for even considering the admission of such an individual. Did I not realize IF such a Stuyvesant student were admitted because of his athletic ability ahead of other more qualified Stuyvesant students what an uproar would ensue, etc.? Sadly, I didn’t.
Not too many years later Dale Terry replaced Rishel and, as I have shared in an earlier submission, he and I formulated the university’s first discretionary admissions process that produced a more well-rounded student that did not threaten the academic reputation of the school.
But, in retrospect, it was committed professionals such as Ralph Rishel that founded Binghamton University. Today its standards, first established by President Bartle and implemented by Mr. Rishel, make BU one of the nation’s most selective public universities.
Tim Schum is a retired BU professor currently seeking to shoot his age in golf.
This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: The man who built Binghamton University admissions | Opinion
Reporting by Tim Schum, Guest Columnist / Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
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By Tim Schum, Guest Columnist | USA TODAY Network
