Phillip L. Sirotkin, who headed the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education for many years, died April 4 following a stroke. He was 83.
A memorial will be held at 1 p.m. May 19 at the commission’s headquarters, 3035 Center Green Drive in Boulder.
Sirotkin was executive director of the Boulder-based organization from 1976 to 1989.
The commission, a group of 15 states, works to get cost-effective education programs and opportunities for public and private colleges.
Sirotkin took over a struggling organization, said his wife, Cecille Sirotkin of Boulder.
It was being challenged by governors, criticized for its programs “and uncoordinated and unintegrated,” said Dick Jonsen, who was Sirotkin’s deputy and later succeeded Sirotkin as director.
“He was a great political strategist and public-service lobbyist,” Jon sen said. “He was an outstanding executive director. He was tough on you when you made a mistake and quick to forgive.”
WICHE is best known for its student-exchange program, allowing students, mostly those in medical programs, to take courses in other states if their own state doesn’t have that training, such as dentistry. It involves about 1,000 students a year.
He also began a program that allows 20,000 undergraduates each year to go to other states for special programs they are interested in, said David Longanecker, current WICHE executive director.
He called Sirotkin “masterful, tenacious, disciplined and dedicated. He was also the ultimate gentleman.”
After retiring from WICHE in 1989, Sirotkin helped found the Midwest Higher Education Compact, a similar multistate program for 12 Midwestern states.
Phillip L. Sirotkin was born in Moline, Ill., on Aug. 2, 1923.
He earned his bachelor’s degree at Wayne State University in Detroit and his master’s and doctoral degrees in political science and constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
He served in Army intelligence, during which time he learned Russian.
He met Cecille Gussack at the University of Chicago, and they were married May 1, 1945.
Sirotkin came to WICHE from the State University of New York at Albany, where he was executive vice president for academic affairs.
Before getting into education, he was associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health and a member of the first U.S. mission to the Soviet Union on mental health systems. He was the only one of the Americans who spoke Russian.
Later he was executive assistant to the director of the California Department of Mental Hygiene.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by their son, Steve Sirotkin of Boulder; daughter, Laurie Sirotkin of Niwot; and three brothers and two sisters.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
