Harold Richman Obituary

Harold Richman was a husband, father, grandfather, mentor, advisor, scholar, and visionary. He was born in Chicago on May 15, 1937 to Leon and Rebecca Richman. He grew up with his sister Nora in Shaker Heights, Ohio – just outside of Cleveland. As the son of two social workers, a concern for others came naturally to Harold. This orientation was given direction in college where experiences both in and out the classroom made him very aware of the desperate poverty in which many lived. In his words, “I had seen things that I couldn’t let pass.” Harold received the training and confidence that he needed to tackle these problems in the MA and later the doctoral program at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration (SSA), during his military service as a social worker at the National Institutes of Mental Health and as a White House Fellow in Lyndon Johnson’s Labor Department. In the spring of 1969, only a year after receiving his PhD, Harold was named Dean of SSA. In his 9 years as dean, he diversified the faculty, both demographically and intellectually, he brought significant financial resources to the school, he broadened the focus of the school from individual counseling to include a substantial public policy component and he helped create a new broader approach to social work called the generalist model. During his time as dean he also helped found the University of Chicago’s public policy studies program and he oversaw the Human Services aspect of Jim Thompson’s transition to the Governorship. While working on the governor’s transition he discovered that the condition of the State’s children was much worse than anyone thought. He persuaded Governor Thompson to give him unprecedented access to data about the state’s Children. When his deanship ended he formed The Children’s Policy Research Project (CPPP). The goal of this new research center was to analyze the state’s data and provide information to decision makers that would both persuade them to act on behalf of children and inform their actions. In 1985, a closing children’s residential facility -- The Chapin Hall Nursery and Half Orphan Asylum -- chose to give their substantial resources to this effort. Their board worked with Harold and the University of Chicago to form the Chapin Hall Center for Children -- a children’s policy research center that would continue the work of CPPP and broaden it to encompass many other aspects of child welfare. Harold was the executive director of the center from its founding until 2001. During that time, Chapin Hall grew from a group of five researchers to a staff of more than 100, whose expertise span such disciplines as social work, child welfare, public policy, economics, education, and law, and whose work involves collaborations with an array of local, state, and federal agencies and nonprofit groups. Chapin Hall continues to be at the forefront of efforts to create high quality applicable research on children’s welfare issues During this time Harold also helped create and run the Aspen Institute’s Roundtable on Community Change -- a national group that seeks to improve the lives of people in poverty by learning from and applying the lessons of comprehensive community development efforts. Toward the end of Harold’s tenure as executive director, Atlantic Philanthropies suggested and offered to fund work with local leaders in areas of conflict to create new children’s policy research centers modeled after Chapin Hall. In the 8 years since, this partnership has helped create centers in Jerusalem, Amman, Dublin, Belfast, and Cape Town. Beyond research and institution building, Harold loved to teach. He particularly enjoyed challenging undergraduates to think seriously about poverty and the public policy issues surrounding it. He was the consummate teacher – creative, provocative, and inspiring. In 1990 he was awarded the University of Chicago’s Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate teaching. Young people also had the opportunity to learn from him outside of the classroom. In graduate school he was a resident head in the U of C residence halls, and from 1982-1992 he and Marlene were the Resident Masters of one of the larger of these -- Burton Judson Courts. Outside of the university, Harold took great joy in serving on civic, foundation, and policy institute boards as a way of advising both people and organizations that he felt were doing important work. Among the organizations that recently benefited from his wisdom were the Center for the Study of Social Policy, The SEED Foundation, the Interfaith Youth Core, After School Matters, the Benton Foundation and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. His expertise was also in demand by the government. He served on a number of task forces in Illinois that advised the state government on child welfare and other related issues. At the national level, he was a special consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Nixon and he served on President Carter’s Commission on Mental Health. Throughout his career, the center of Harold’s life was his family. Marlene, his wife of forty-four years, his two sons, Andrew and Robert, their wives and their children.