Recipients shall be admitted students in the College of Education at the junior, senior, or fifth-year post baccalaureate level and shall be selected on the basis of their declared interest in teaching in a large, urban public school system in the State of Michigan upon graduation. Examples of the Donors: idea of an urban system include Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Jackson, Bay City, Muskegon, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor, and Pontiac. Recipients shall be in good standing and making progress towards their degree. Awards are not renewable.

Paul Pitzer was born in Pennsylvania but raised in Detroit, Michigan from the time he was a young boy (his parents and sister moved to Detroit in the early 1920s).  Mavis (Smiles) Pitzer was born in Dudley, England but immigrated with her parents and brother to Detroit when she was a young child.  Both of them graduated from the Detroit Public School system, Paul from Mackenzie High School and Mavis from Northwestern High School.  Paul served in the Army during World War II and in the Air Force during the Korean War.  He worked for 25 years as a Detroit Police Officer and for 15 years with the State of Michigan, retiring in 1986.  Mavis was a wonderful mother and teacher in the Detroit Public School system. Upon receiving her education degree from Wayne State University she taught mostly underprivileged children for twenty years, retiring in 1990.  Together, they raised three sons who all graduated from the Detroit Public School system and Michigan State University.