Messerli, Jonathan C(arl) 1926-2004
MESSERLI, Jonathan C(arl) 1926-2004
OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born February 14, 1926, in Albany, OR; died of a heart attack November 28, 2004, in Berks County, PA. College president, educator, and author. Messerli was a former president of Muhlenberg College and Susquehanna University. A 1947 graduate of Concordia Teachers College, he earned his M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1952 and his doctorate in the history of American education from Harvard University in 1963. Messerli's teaching career began at the high school level, teaching biology and sciences at a St. Louis, Missouri, school from 1947 until 1957. During the early 1960s, he worked at Harvard University and the University of Washington in Seattle. He then joined the Columbia University faculty in 1964, staying there for four years before being hired as dean of the School of Education at Hofstra University in 1968. From 1972 until 1977 he was dean at Fordham University. Selected to be president of Susquehanna University, he led that university until 1984, then became president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, until 1992. Messerli was the author of Horace Mann, a Biography (1973).
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
ONLINE
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Web site,http://www.elca.org/ (December 3, 2004).
WKOK News Online,http://www.wkok.com/ (January 26, 2005).