Chapin Hall Founder Harold Richman
Honored by the University of Chicago

Chicago, IL, July 7, 2008 - Colleagues and friends of Harold Richman, founding director of Chapin Hall and the Hermon Dunlap Smith Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and the College, gathered today to celebrate his many contributions to the field of children's policy research.

Matthew Stagner, executive director of Chapin Hall and a former student of Mr. Richman's, marked the celebration by announcing the naming of the main conference room in the historic Chapin Hall building in Mr. Richman's honor. He also announced the creation of the Harold A. Richman Fellowship to support outstanding child policy researchers at Chapin Hall early in their careers.

"Harold has been an intellectual and professional mentor to most of us now in leadership roles at Chapin Hall, as well as to leaders in the field around the globe," said Mr. Stagner. "His vision and experience has enabled us to expand our research capacity and partnerships, and strengthen our ability to inform policy decisions across the country."

University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer led the tributes to Mr. Richman. Other speakers at the event included University Trustee George A. Ranney, Jr., Chapin Hall board chair Francis Beidler, III, and board member Arthur M. Sussman, vice president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Photographs of the event may be viewed at http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1411

Mr. Richman established Chapin Hall in 1985 at a time when public human services agencies had limited resources to use their own administrative records to improve their programs and policies. Under Mr. Richman's leadership, Chapin Hall grew from a group of five researchers to a staff of more than 100, whose expertise spans 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. Mr. Richman stepped down as Chapin Hall director in 2001, but has remained at Chapin Hall as a research fellow.

From 1965 to 1967, Mr. Richman was a White House fellow and special assistant to the Secretary of Labor. He joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1967, served as dean of the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration from 1969 to 1978, and was the founding chairman of the University's public policy studies program from 1974 to 1977. He has served on boards, commissions, and panels in both the public and private sectors, and is the author of seminal publications in the field of children's policy.

Mr. Richman is active on boards of directors throughout the world. He is chair of the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington, D.C.; chair of the Children's Institute at the University of Cape Town; and cochair of the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change. He also serves on the boards of the John Gardner Center at Stanford University; the Michael Reese Health Trust in Chicago; After School Matters in Chicago; the Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago; the Information and Research Center of the King Hussein Foundation in Amman, Jordan; the Brookdale Center on Children and Youth in Jerusalem, Israel; and the SEED Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Chapin Hall Center for Children is an independent policy research center at the University of Chicago that provides rigorous research and innovative ideas to policymakers, government officials, service providers, and funders working to improve the lives of children and adolescents. Chapin Hall's multidisciplinary research encompass the needs of all children and adolescents, with special attention to populations experiencing significant problems—such as maltreatment, poverty, delinquency, and mental and physical illness—and to the service systems designed to address those challenges.

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