Very few have put the “vitae” into curriculum vitae like Charles Fogel, or as he says, “Call me ‘Charlie.’” His life’s account is a roll call of service that goes on for pages. If he wasn’t asked to note it all for Rotary International on reaching his 50-year milestone of service last year, the self-effacing, energetic gentleman would have never made such a listing. A Rotarian of the Buffalo club since 1954, Fogel has served at many different levels, including club president, district governor and Rotary International director.

“I am just an average individual who tries to follow the adage of ‘Service Above Self,’ which is Rotary’s motto,” he states. “I find that doing so not only helps others, makes the world a more pleasant, healthy and friendly place, but also is fun and fulfilling.” Fogel’s commitment to volunteering continues unabated in his 92nd year. Each week, he is a mentor in mathematics at Lorraine Elementary School in South Buffalo, part of a Rotary community endeavor as was a recent trip to India, where he helped immunize scores of children against polio, in conjunction with the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and UNICEF. He also moderates a monthly discussion group at the Amherst Senior Center, and he remains one of UB’s most active alumni, having served eight chancellors and presidents in his 70-year association with the school.

Fogel’s current mentoring role extends a teaching career that encompassed four years in local high schools and 41 years at UB. When he reluctantly retired in 1984 (at the time there were state age mandates, since loosened), he had the distinction of being the longest-serving UB faculty member. After his student days in the 1930s at the small private school that was UB, he went into teaching. His initial faculty appointment was as the physics department’s fourth faculty member and supervisor of physics instruction in the university’s war training program.

In spring 1946, after two years in industrial research, Fogel joined the engineering faculty, which, due to burgeoning postwar interest, became UB’s newest school several months later. “The Parker Engineering Building was built in nine months,” he recalls. “Within a year they had to add wings to it. The reason for this growth was the bulge of students getting out of [military] service and having the GI Bill available to them for university education. Most desired engineering. In fall ’45, there were 115 engineering students, spring ’46 there were 300 and the following year, there were 882 in the fall and 1,034 in the spring. Over the next 10 years, the average enrollment in engineering was 633.”

Fogel was a civil engineering professor, but during his long tenure, he also served as assistant engineering dean, director of the university’s Industrial Liaison Office, director of the Division of General and Technical Studies, assistant to the president for educational affairs, assistant executive vice president and acting dean of the Graduate School.

Throughout his teaching career, Fogel served in various capacities for many community organizations, and through his relationship with Rotary, he did some life-enhancing work internationally, facilitating wide-ranging humanitarian initiatives. “The three most important choices that I made in my life are my occupation and where I chose to practice it, my mate, and accepting the invitation to be a Rotarian,” he says.

In retirement, Fogel maintains a steady UB association, including the compilation of the engineering school’s history and his continuing support of and at many alumni functions, as recently as at the investiture of John B. Simpson as UB president last year where he lead the UB Pillars—graduates from the classes of 1954 and earlier.

The recipient of numerous awards, he was awarded the first UB President’s Medal in 1990 for his exemplary service to the university. Two years later, he won the Alumni Association’s highest honor, the Samuel P. Capen Award, named for the first chancellor under whom Fogel served.

Fogel’s schedule is filled with global and local community volunteer efforts that could exhaust people half his age. His recent trip, in fact, garnered press notice in India, a country whose aging population is less mobile. “When they learned that I came across the ocean at my age to help out, it made the papers,” he relates. One of his three sons, who lives in Bombay, joined him in the immunization effort, administering drops of vaccine and candy rewards to the children of Meerut, a populous community near New Delhi. “The nicest part is that there hasn’t been a case of polio in the 18 weeks since we were there,” he concludes.

What makes Fogel run? It is his devotion to life’s work being firmly rooted in helping others. With characteristic humor, he also notes the advantage of a younger wife (Bernice, a 1946 UB alumna, is 11 years his junior) and the fact that he was on a low-cholesterol diet for years before it became fashionable. Overriding it all is his desire to remain ever active—a true tonic for longevity that includes a very healthy dose of humanity.

Jim Bisco is a veteran Buffalo-area writer and frequent contributor to UB Today.