Remembering Campus Legends
to work under four different UHart presidents (Archibald Woodruff, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, Humphrey Tonkin, and Walter Harrison) before retiring in 2007. Initially hired by Woodruff to serve as associate provost, Condon’s legal knowledge and background
(two law degrees from Harvard) soon led to his appointment as general counsel and University secretary, the position he held upon retirement. Condon remained involved on campus in subsequent years, serving as a special assistant to the president for five years. His impact on campus spanned many areas. Condon was a founding member of the board of the van Rooy Center for Complexity and Conflict Analysis. He was an integral member of the University’s annual Martin Luther King Day Planning Committee for more than a dozen years. “Charles Condon had an enormous influence on the University of Hartford and on me personally,” recalls President Emeritus Harrison. “He was a trusted advisor and good friend. He handled all of his assignments with grace and humility, both as legal counsel and as secretary of the University.” President Emeritus Tonkin, who preceded Harrison, was also greatly influenced by Condon, describing him as “the ideal university counsel: careful and measured in his
Breit participated on panels in Europe and the United States. He delivered papers on the topics of displaced persons, routing out fascism, war and peace, and teaching political science, and was frequently interviewed by local and national media. His publications centered on war and morality, and military occupation as an instrument of national policy, and he served as president of the Northeastern Political Science Association. Breit received University of Hartford Coffin faculty grants, and fellowships from Yale University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Army War
College. In 1963, he received a Fulbright grant for research in Germany. When he wasn’t in the classroom, or in his office advising a student, Breit was deeply immersed in the complex process of governing the University. He was the first faculty member to hold the major offices of the Faculty Senate twice; served on and chaired nearly every college and University committee; and was a five-time University regent. Breit received the Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Award for Service to the University in 1989. In honor of his legacy, the University established an endowed Peter K. Breit Scholarship Fund.
Charles Condon Charles Condon, whose wisdom, institutional knowledge, and dedication to the University of Hartford touched the campus community for more than four decades, died last Dec. 13. Condon began his tenure at the University in 1969 and would go on
Peter Breit Peter K. Breit, professor emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences, died last Oct. 2. He served the University of Hartford for 34 years, distinguishing himself as a teacher, a scholar, and a University citizen. Breit joined the University in 1964, teaching in the Department of Politics and Government, and became the department chair in 1968. He was honored with the Roy E. Larsen Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1981. A commentator on international relations, the Soviet Union, Germany, and strategic policies,
