Gerhard Spiegler, 85, Haverford College professor

Gerhard E. Spiegler, 85, of Rosemont, a Haverford College theology professor who later became a provost and college president, died Monday, Aug. 24, of cardiac failure at Lankenau Hospital.

Dr. Spiegler received a doctorate in theology from the University of Chicago in 1961. He was offered a faculty position there, but chose to go to Haverford College. That fall, he joined other young scholars who were taking a fresh look at the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

Dr. Spiegler taught many courses, all characterized by a focus on original texts. Students read the texts to learn the historical and cultural context of theological concepts, and traced the consequences through the centuries.

Dr. Spiegler stood out at Haverford, according to Daniel Larkin, a former student: "He was a legend among the students - for the rigorous compassion of his teaching and for his obviously penetrating knowledge of a wide range of intellectual history."

In 1967, he wrote The Eternal Covenant: Schleiermacher's Experiment in Cultural Theology. (Friedrich Schleiermacher was a German theologian.) Dr. Spiegler served as Haverford's provost and interim president after the retirement of president Hugh Borton in 1967 and before the installation of John R. Coleman.

Dr. Spiegler then accepted a job as provost at Temple University. He left that position after four years to join Temple's Department of Religion as a professor, later becoming department chair.

In 1985, Dr. Spiegler became the president of Elizabethtown College, a liberal arts college in Lancaster County. During his tenure, the college did $35 million in campus improvements, secured a $24 million endowment, and raised its ranking among schools of its type.

Dr. Spiegler was responsible for building the High Library, the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, the Bucher Meetinghouse, and the Leffler Chapel and Performance Center.

"The words that come to mind, in thinking of Gerhard, are thinker, reader, intellectual, collegial leader, and a teacher who could take any student willing to put in the effort on a path to a far deeper, more penetrating understanding of the thought and culture in which our own culture exists, and from which it evolved," said his family in a tribute.

Born in 1929 in Lithuania, in the German-majority city of Memel (now Klaipeda), he spoke Lithuanian as well as German as a youth.

He witnessed the annexation of Memel by the Wehrmacht in March 1939. Too young to be drafted to fight in World War II, he later escaped to Oldenburg, Germany. After the war, Dr. Spiegler immigrated to America. While living in Chicago, he met and married Ethel Maldonado from Guatemala.

Dr. Spiegler received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Danforth Foundation in 1968; an award for distinguished research from the University of Chicago; and a doctor of human letters from Elizabethtown College. He also contributed to religious scholarly works. But his most enduring - and endearing - mark was a teacher and a colleague, his family said.

He was a devoted father and husband. "He was very protective and supportive of his family, and shared his joy of learning with us," said his daughter, Karin E.

Besides his daughter and his wife of 62 years, he is survived by sons Eric J. and Mark D.; two granddaughters; and a sister.

Services were Saturday, Aug. 29.

Contributions may be made to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees via www.unhcr.org.

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