During his junior year at Union in 1938, David Falk ran out of tuition money.
“I just came up short. I didn’t have it. The College could have told me, ‘Well, no tuition, no classes,’” Falk said. “They didn’t do that. They made a deal with me where I could finish out my school year and pay them back as I could, which I did. That was very impressive to me. I feel that if I can help students who are feeling financial pressure, I should do so.”
After graduating in 1939, Falk earned a degree from the nearby Albany Medical College and later served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II. In 1950 he settled in Bakersfield, Calif., where he went into private practice and later met his wife, Elynor. In 1976, the Falks established the David and Elynor Falk Endowed Scholarship. The scholarship fund has since helped dozens of students cover the cost of attending Union.
As a Union student in the late 1930s, Falk commuted from Albany for day classes in Schenectady with three or four other students in a beat-up old car. It was then near the end of the Great Depression and most families in upstate New York were struggling. For Falk, that meant evenings and summers were largely spent working for tuition money.
“I drove a truck. I was a delivery man. I was a night watchman. I did whatever I could to earn money. You have to remember in those days there were people who couldn’t find work. If I didn’t work and get the money, I couldn’t do what I wanted to do,” Falk said.
By the early 1940s Falk had completed medical school and joined the war effort. Falk was en route to Japan, as part of a naval convoy, when the United States military dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, hastening the end of World War II. Falk’s ship was redirected from the Panama Canal to New York City, leaving Falk with a major decision. He could return to New York’s Capital Region or move on to southern California. It was January of 1946 and the prospect of another winter in the Northeast was too daunting.
“I got to California—Union Station in Los Angeles—and went outside. The sun was blazing and the temperature was 86. I took off my overcoat and never put it back on again. I said, ‘I am never leaving here,’” Falk said.
While in private practice, Falk became chief of the department of urology at Kern County General Hospital in Bakersfield. He married Elynor Rudnick, a commercial helicopter service owner and pilot, in 1962. From 1976 to 1992, Falk was a field representative for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. In that role, he traveled around the country to assure that care given at Medicare-funded hospitals was adequate.
Falk, who lives in Palm Springs, is also a generous donor to Albany Medical College, where he created an endowed chair in urology. His wife Elynor, who died in 1996, was a rancher’s daughter who attended UCLA and later ran family farms and managed property in Bakersfield, Indio and Palm Springs.
In May 2007, he created the David Falk ’39 and Elynor Rudnick-Falk Professorship in engineering, now held by Cherrice Traver, dean of Engineering and Computer Science. Other Union gifts from Falk include a two-manual harpsichord given in memory of former professor of music, Elmer Tidmarsh.
“Listening to music is something I find valuable to the present day. Professor Tidmarsh was a good teacher and composer and a great organist. He was very much dedicated to the music of Bach,” Falk said. “He explained to us in his music appreciation class how the music was written and how to listen. The music became less opaque. It became understandable to us.”