By Kelly Coe

Contributing Reporter

Photo credit: DUSTIN ALEXANDER/The Oakland Post

Edward Pintzuk, 94, has lived through history that many of his fellow students have only read in textbooks.

Where do you see yourself in 70 years? Can you imagine attending college in your 90s? Oakland University’s oldest student, Edward Pintzuk, who is 94 years old, proves that when it comes to higher learning, age doesn’t matter. As a man who studied and taught history, and lived through nearly every historical event in the 20th century, he has a lot to offer as a student.

Pintzuk was born in Philadelphia in 1914 to Russian immigrant parents. At the age of 15, he held his first job working at a produce store on the weekend for roughly nine cents per hour. But, from the time he was 17, he has been deeply involved in the political realm.

“Not party politics, but politics with a small ‘p,'” Pintzuk said.

In fact, the basic reason why he pursued higher education was to acquire an academic critique of his political ideology. Although he already has a doctorate in podiatric medicine from Temple University in Philadelphia (1950) and a Ph.D. in history from Wayne State University (1993), his hunger for knowledge lives on.

“I’m not hunting for another degree,” Pintzuk said. “The whole point here is that there were empty spaces in my knowledge of American history that I wanted to fill.”

During his Ph.D. program at WSU, he served as a teaching assistant and later as an adjunct professor. He was also involved in Wayne State’s Labor Studies Center, where he taught GM employees the history of the automobile industry and American economic history.  

Pintzuk enrolled in his first OU class this fall, U.S. Early National Period, 1787-1815, taught by associate professor Todd Estes.

He had been searching for a course that covers the early years of the U.S. republic.

“I found one here and it turned out to be a very lucky grab,” Pintzuk said. His goal was to gain a better understanding of the ratification of the Constitution, the War of 1812, and the Great Awakening.

Though he found that occurrences during this period are similar to what is going on today, Pintzuk said that “history doesn’t really repeat itself. It never comes back the same, but continues with connections to the past; it’s never a true repetition.”

Pintzuk also played a role in creating it. Describing his political background, he said that the State Department and the attorney general classified him as a premature anti-fascist.

Even before Hitler came to power in 1933, Pintzuk was part of the anti-fascist movement in America.

“We tried to educate the public of the fascism in Germany,” Pintzuk said. “Our politics were much more radical than U.S. politics. I think it was in about 1942, Germany had become our enemy, but because we saw [them] as an enemy before [they] did, the U.S. government considered us to be anti-fascists.”

 At the same time, Pintzuk was involved in the Congress of Industrial Organization’s growing union movement, where he helped to organize and unite public workers. He even remembers the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s when Spain abolished the monarchy to establish a democratic government.

“We on the left were in support of the republican government of Spain. The war was between the democratic republicans and the fascist governments of Europe.”   

 Aside from WWII and the victory over fascism, Pintzuk explained how he and his wife, Reba, were involved in civil rights and the elimination of the poll tax (in order for a person to vote, they had to pay a tax).

“Poor people couldn’t vote and many black people were poor,” Pintzuk said. The poll tax was finally eliminated in 1968.

“For my wife and me, [it] was a personal victory because we were so much involved,” Pintzuk said.

In spite of all of his achievements, Pintzuk insists that his greatest accomplishment has been marrying his wife.

Reba, a well-known sculptor, passed away in April. They had been married for 68 years and together raised two daughters.

Pintzuk takes pride not only in his personal and scholarly success, but also in his participation in the Anti- Nazi movement, the Pro-Spanish government, and the organization of the CIO.

When it comes to U.S. history, he said that in most schools today, “a one-sided picture of American development is offered, therefore, student citizens must go out of their way to question and question and question.”

Pintzuk believes that all young people entering college need to get active in the things that impact their lives.

“Get involved,” he said. “Your life will be no better than the politics of the country.”