Big Dreams or Pipe Dreams?

As chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh since 1954, Edward H. Litchfield undertook a $100 million expansion program, increased the school's faculty from 561 to 1,091, raised professors' salaries from an average $6,548 to $12,126. But Litchfield's big dreams outstripped big donations (TIME, July 2), and last month, with the university running nearly $20 million short in operating expenses over the past five years, the state legislature was forced to provide $2,500,000 to meet the school's payroll. Last week, in the face of mounting criticism, Chancellor Litchfield abruptly resigned.

No reason was given for the resignation, although Litchfield, 51, is still recuperating from a heart attack and is under doctors' orders to reduce his work load (among his other jobs: chairmanship of the S.C.M. Corp., formerly Smith Corona Marchant). Litchfield leaves with the legislature still debating whether to put privately endowed Pitt under state control and with trustees divided as to what he has actually accomplished. Banker Frank Denton brusquely dismissed his plans as "pipe dreams." But Trustee Chairman Gwilym Price, accepting the resignation, wrote Litchfield: "You have done more for the University of Pittsburgh in a decade than most men could have accomplished in half a century."

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