Evelyn Kaiser, co-founder of Fort Lauderdale's Keizer University and a pioneer for women in science and education, died Monday in Pompano Beach, her family announced. She was 100 years old.
Keizer University started with just one student in a two-room storefront in Fort Lauderdale and is now one of Florida's largest private nonprofit universities. Mr. Kaiser founded this school in 1977 with his son Arthur and his Mr. Kaiser (current president) and taught until he was 90 years old.
But before founding her university, Kaiser was a young woman pursuing science in 1940s Philadelphia, struggling despite gender expectations to obtain an education and later start her own lab. .
“She did it because she thought she could. That's what we say about her,” her son, Jeffrey Kaiser, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Saturday. “She did it again and again and again.”
Kaiser was born in 1924, the third of four children, and grew up in Depression-era Philadelphia. His son, Jeffrey Kaiser, told the Sun Sentinel on Saturday that money was tight and his father decided that only the boys in the family could attend college and medical school.
But Kaiser went anyway. She graduated top of her class from Philadelphia High School for Girls and earned a full scholarship to Temple University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in medical technology. According to her obituary written by her family, she also married at the age of 19, but she continued her studies despite her disappointments.
“She always had a vision,” her daughter Ellen Farren said Saturday.
After World War II, Kaiser founded her own medical laboratory in 1946, where she developed a $4 pregnancy test using rabbits, Jeffrey Kaiser said. Without today's technology available, Kaiser had to inject the rabbits and open them to view their ovaries to see if the woman was pregnant.
Arthur Kaiser said when Kaiser first opened the lab, it was removed from the national registry because women didn't own labs at the time. Years later, after Keizer University launched her own laboratory technology program, she sent a letter to the organization that controlled enrollment and reinstated her.
Jeffrey Kaiser said she used the money she earned from her lab to help her husband attend medical school.
“You're a woman business owner in 1946,” Jeffrey Kaiser said. “All the guys were coming back from the military and looking for jobs, and my mom started a business. And it's a successful business. People were asking her, 'What do you mean, you don't stay at home and take care of your kids?' You can imagine the criticism. ”
In 1959, Kaiser also began teaching experimental science at the Franklin School of Science and Arts. However, she juggled a career and raising her three children. Sometimes she had to take her children to the lab and at home put the frogs in the refrigerator to hibernate. Her daughter Ellen recalled taking her children outside to play with her.
When Kaiser's husband became a doctor, she became the “perfect doctor's wife,” Jeffrey Kaiser said. She became a gourmet chef, serving dishes such as Cherry Jubilee and Gazpacho to dinner guests.
Eventually, Kaiser moved to Florida, initially living in Hollywood. Her marriage broke down and, using the money she received from her divorce settlement and the support of her family, she decided to found Keizer University with her son Arthur, who was a graduate student at the time. .
“It was a rocky start,” Arthur Kaiser said. The school operated out of his 2,400 square foot store on Oakland Park Boulevard and had a staff of five and one student.
“One of the things we learned was that we didn’t know much about running a school,” he said.
Terry Schmidt, the only student, told the Sun Sentinel in 2011 that she realized she didn't have any classmates and wondered if she should get a refund. However, she stayed because she liked her teacher Evelyn Kaiser.
“I was completely convinced of her passion for education,” Schmidt said. She graduated and went into nursing.
Eventually, the school grew from a career college to a university. We currently have 20 campuses throughout Florida and other countries, with both graduate and undergraduate programs, serving more than 20,000 students annually. We offer majors in a variety of fields.
Those who took Kaiser's classes knew that she was a tough teacher. The story was, “If she can succeed in her class, she can succeed anywhere,” Arthur Kaiser said. With a strict dress code and attendance policy, “the entire school was designed around the philosophy that we have structure.”
Many of Kaiser's students have gone on to become medical professionals throughout South Florida. In 2015, she was inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame in Tallahassee.
She continued to teach until she was 90 years old and then worked as an advisor until she was 94, Arthur Kaiser said.
The day before his 100th birthday, another grandchild, Elizabeth Phalen, recalled him saying on Facebook, “I'm going to make it to 100, but then I'm going to check out of this hotel.”
Her other grandson, Robert Kaiser, wrote on Facebook: Thank you for her wisdom and love that she has given us. I appreciate the example she set for my daughters. She is grateful for the memories of her that she has left us with. ”
Learning and education defined Kaiser's life well into old age. I learned yoga in my 80s. Every year, she took her family on increasingly adventurous trips, starting with just Ellen and eventually taking all of her grandchildren.
“She was a true, true pioneer in schools and education,” Jeffrey Kaiser said. “And she lived her life as she taught it.”
