Ex-Elmhurst College president set school on solid foundation
IVAN E. FRICK 1928-2018
In 23 years as Elmhurst College’s president, Ivan E. Frick oversaw the construction of two new campus buildings and the renovation of seven others, achieved 22 straight years of balanced budgets and significantly increased the west suburban school’s endowment.
“Ivan was very fiscally oriented, and he was a very strong leader,” said former college board of trustees Chairman Joel Herter. “He did an excellent job of improving our college finances, which were weak when he took over.”
Frick, 90, died of complications from a form of dementia on Aug. 25 at the Willow Valley Communities senior living community in Willow Street, Pa., said his son Daniel. He had been a resident of Lancaster, Pa., since 2004 and before that had lived in Oak Brook.
Born in New Providence, Pa., Frick earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from Findlay College in Ohio, now the University of Findlay, in 1949. After college he decided to focus solely on religious studies. He began working on a bachelor’s degree of divinity at Lancaster Theological Seminary, which he earned in 1952. He also began working as a pastor at a rural church nearby.
Frick then led a church in Harrisburg, Pa., and for a time taught at Findlay while working toward a master’s degree in sacred theology from Oberlin College, which he received in 1955. He subsequently received his doctorate from Columbia University in New York and became assistant to the president at Findlay in 1963, rising to president a year later. Over the next seven years, Frick restored Findlay’s accreditation and oversaw the construction of four campus buildings.
Frick was named Elmhurst College’s president in 1971. He worked on producing balanced budgets and on fundraising to increase the college’s endowment, which was $750,000 in 1971 and rose to $34 million by the time he retired in 1994.
“Ivan really set Elmhurst on a very strong foundation,” said Elmhurst College President Troy VanAken. “He really built for the future, and invested in the institution and set us up.”
Longtime Elmhurst College chemistry professor Eugene Losey recalled Frick bringing stability not only budgetwise but also with the college’s faculty, which “rekindled a sense of community here.”
“He invited everyone at the college to a Christmas open house each year, where he and his wife, Ruth,… were wonderful hosts,” Losey said. “As a faculty member, I felt respected, valued and part of a community. This sense of community has pervaded Elmhurst College through the years, even as we have become larger and more complex, and it is the reason why many of us have stayed over the years.”
Frick oversaw the construction of the physical education center in 1983 and a computer science and technology center in 1988, as well as the renovation of buildings including the A.C. Buehler Library and the Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel.
Frick chaired the higher education groups including the Non-public Advisory Committee to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities and the West Suburban Regional Academic Consortium. He also spent two years as the president of the Associated Colleges of Illinois.
Elmhurst renamed its College Union building the Frick Center in 1994.
After retiring from Elmhurst that year, Frick moved from Elmhurst to Oak Brook and formed a higher education consulting business, dealing with a set of clients mostly in Minnesota, Frick’s son said.
Ruth Frick died in 2015. In addition to his son Daniel, Frick is survived by another son, David; a daughter, Susan; five granddaughters; two brothers, Paul and David; and a sister, Esther Schneider.
Two memorial services are planned. One will take place at 2 p.m. Sept. 15 at Lancaster Theological Seminary’s Santee Chapel in Pennsylvania; the other will take place at 11 a.m. Oct. 13 at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ, 125 W. Church St., Elmhurst.