J. Matthew Simon, who rose from a chemistry faculty member to become president of what is now Point Park University from 1986 to 1995, died today at Forbes Hospice. He was 73.
“If you asked him, he would say he was most proud of the fact that he paid off the roof and acquired the Bank Center,” his wife of 48 years, Janet Simon, said in a university news release.
Then Point Park College bought the Bank Center, once an indoor shopping center, in 1990 for $1.85 million, spent $3.5 million on renovations and reopened it as the Library Center in 1997 with both the college’s library and a branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Carnegie Library moved out in 2004, and the building is now known as the University Center, housing the university library, the George Rowland White Theatre and classroom and office space.
During his tenure, the college celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1990. In an article on the occasion in The Pittsburgh Press, Mr. Simon said his main reason for wanting to be president was to be able to help the college.
“If anyone takes a top job for the prestige, for the money or because that person likes authority, then those are all the wrong reasons,” he said.
Point Park faced financial challenges when Mr. Simon took the helm. In the 1990 article, a trustee praised Mr. Simon’s ability to raise money.
The college presidency held challenges. In 1992, Mr. Simon announced that the Pittsburgh Playhouse Theatre Company productions would be discontinued after that season, citing economics and a more practical allocation of time, space and money, while some other Playhouse programs would continue. That prompted a fund-raising effort by alumni, artists and patrons to save the company, resulting in the company being reinstated and downsized.
Now the programs are strong enough that the university is in the midst of building a new Playhouse on its Downtown campus.
In 1994, about a year before he left the presidency, the college instituted a restructuring program to cut costs in the face of declining enrollment. In January 1995, Point Park acknowledged it tapped into its endowment to help offset losses. Around the same time, Mr. Simon announced reaching a fund-raising goal of $10 million and said he would not seek reappointment when his term would expire in August 1996. He stepped down in June 1995.
Mr. Simon said his decision to step down was unrelated to the financial situation, In a letter to the Post-Gazette in 1996, he noted there was no operating deficit for the fiscal year 1994-95.
On his resume, he noted that during his tenure as president, the diversity of international students grew, cooperative programs to reach “historically by-passed students” were undertaken, new programs such as performing arts management were started and the college’s most ambitious capital campaign was begun, reaching $5 million above its $10 million goal.
In his first year after leaving the presidency, he took a sabbatical leave, becoming a visiting scholar at the University of Pittsburgh in administrative and policy studies in higher education for a year.
He then served as a distinguished professor at Point Park in its Department of Natural Sciences and Engineering Technology and an adjunct in the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Education.
In 2005, he gave the university’s Leonard Finkelhor Lecture on the topic of the academic issues around intelligent design, a religion-based alternative to evolution. In a letter to the Post-Gazette that year, he wrote that intelligent design had not been scientifically tested and validated, saying, the “real violation of academic freedom is requiring someone to teach, as science, something that has not been scientifically validated.”
Mr. Simon retired in 2007.
He also was a member of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority selected by the state to approve city budgets.
Mr. Simon was a graduate of Albright College and earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969, the same year he joined the Point Park faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry. He defended his dissertation in the morning and taught his first class in the afternoon.
He moved up quickly at Point Park. From January 1973 to August 1973, Mr. Simon was director of studies for Point Park’s European campus in Switzerland. In August 1973, he returned to the Pittsburgh campus to chair the Department of Natural Sciences and Engineering Technology.
He recruited students to the college, going so far as to keep a box of Point Park ties in his car trunk to give to both male and female potential students.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Simon is survived by two sons, Jacob Simon of Pittsburgh and Edward Simon of Bethlehem.
Funeral arrangements are by John A. Freyvogel Sons, 4900 Centre Ave., Shadyside.
Education writer Eleanor Chute: echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955.
First Published: May 20, 2015, 2:40 p.m.
Updated: May 21, 2015, 3:30 a.m.