Professor Milton Plesur

Dr. Milton Plesur, was a member of UB’s History Department faculty from 1955 until his untimely death in 1987 at the age of 60. A native of Buffalo, he earned a B.S. from Buffalo State in 1947, an M.A. in history from UB in 1949, and his Ph.D. in 1954 from the University of Rochester. In 1975, his achievements in the class room were recognized by the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The Milton Plesur Memorial Fund provides scholarships to full-time history students in UB’s Department of History and is supported through the contributions of Dr. Plesur’s former students and his many friends.

Speaking about Professor Plesur, Robert Rose, BA ’65, an honors student in his many courses, remembers him as “not only a brilliant teacher, but a wonderful advisor. He was the kind of person you could sit in his office and talk to about life.”

The scholarship is intended to carry on what Dr. Plesur worked on throughout his long career at UB: helping serious history students receive a strong education and achieve a degree in this most timely liberal arts discipline.

The 1965 yearbook, the Buffalonian was dedicated to Professor Milton Plesur:

Many are the professors that instruct at our newly emerged State School, the University of Buffalo. Many are the administrators who co-ordinate student activities. Fewer are the professors who instruct because they have a genuine interest in the students’ welfare. Fewer are the administrators who enter into the students’ lives, and help guide the bewildered until they can stand along in a complex world. Many students, now graduates, remember their difficult times when one man almost single-handedly kept them in school, and who emanated faith and encouragement. Many graduates will never forget the friend, the friend who cared. With deep gratification, we the graduating class, dedicate the 1965 BUFFALONIAN, to one man, a living symbol of all those who care, Milton Plesur.