With a specialty in organizational psychology and group dynamics, Arthur Blumberg was a professor at Syracuse University and a scholar well known for Supervisors and Teachers: A Private Cold War (1974). A review described it at the time as “wading into the sea of controversy with research” with “a generous sprinkling of rumor and folklore about supervisors and teachers.” It was lauded at the time as one of the few books that treated the issue of supervisory competence in an honest and forthright manner. Art talked with teachers in bars about their perceptions of supervisors and discovered a paradox: that while teachers welcomed supervisors on one hand, they also put up barriers to them. Art with his colleague Jonas argued that teachers had to grant supervisors access to their classrooms as well as their practice for supervision to work. His other public school books included The Effective Principal: Perspectives on School Leadership (1980), School Administration as Craft: Foundations of Practice (1988), and The School Superintendent: Living with Conflict (1984).
In COPIS meetings, as we debated how to define supervision, its purposes, whether clinical supervision made a difference in schools, and who counted as a supervisor, he would chide and cajole colleagues to not take themselves so seriously as he grasped his pipe and used it to illustrate a point in midair. He also thoughtfully wrote about his summers on Cape Cod and his Jewish heritage. I always looked forward to our meetings and getting caught up on life events, and sharing our love for the sea and poetry. His wife Phyllis helped ÇOPIS establish the Blumberg Scholarship award that was later renamed the Blumberg/Pajak Award at the passing of his student Ed Pajak. His obituary in Syracuse can be found at https://obits.syracuse.com/us/obituaries/syracuse/name/arthur-blumberg-obituary?id=51234501
Written by Helen M. Hazi who thinks fondly of him and his friendship.