Professorships
Named professorships are awarded to tenured faculty who have made a distinguished and enduring contribution to their research area. Named professorships are permanent awards established through contributions to the School of Law through the Indiana University Foundation.
The Harry Pratter Professorship
Harry Pratter (1917-2002) was part of the heart and soul of this law school for more than 50 years. It is difficult to describe fully the impact that Harry had on generations of students and faculty at this school. He began teaching at the IU School of Law in 1950. He taught many subjects, including Commercial Law, Negotiable Instruments, Conflicts of Law, Contracts, Torts and Family Law. But like all great teachers, fundamentally, he taught life. He simply saw connections between ideas and situations that others do not see. And he had ways of enabling others to see these connections and to think and reflect about them for many years thereafter. For Harry, there was no such thing as just a legal problem. There were only human problems with which the law must deal.
Harry was born in the Ukraine and emigrated to the United States as a child. He received his BA at the University of Buffalo and his JD from the University of Chicago in 1950. He served in the army during World War II and, before enrolling in law school, taught English at the University of Buffalo for two and a half years.
At IU, Harry served on numerous law school and university committees and received many honors, including the Gavel Award, in 1966, which honors faculty and staff members who have contributed exceptionally to the life of the law students in any given year. He was a member of the University Faculty Council from 1969 to 1971, and from 1975 to 1976, he served as acting dean of the law school. Although he officially retired in 1984, he didn't stop teaching law classes until 1994. Even after that time, he remained a great teacher, no less so for being "at large."
The Harry Pratter Professorship was established in 2000, at the initiation of Bob & Karen Knight. Bob Knight helped create this professorship in Harry's name with a major gift of his own, as well as by participating in university events, the proceeds of which were for the benefit of this fund. Other donors who have chosen to honor Harry in this way, with major gifts of their own, are Professor George P. Smith II, Randy & Maribeth Seger, Robert & Gaye Shula, Jerry & Anne Moss, Peter & Sandra Obremskey, Clarence & Judy Doninger, and Andy & Carol Hays.