Norman Scotch, Founding Dean of SPH, Dies at 86.

Norman A. Scotch, the Founding Dean of the BU School of Public Health whose strong belief in the importance of public health education helped shape the School’s emphasis on teaching, died unexpectedly on November 25. He was 86.

Scotch was driven by the principle that people working in public health should have opportunities for additional training so that they were more effective — and could do the most good.  With that in mind, he helped create a practice-based curriculum, navigated a core group of academics and administrators through the accreditation process, and pushed to establish the School as a separate institution in 1979.

Boston born and raised, Scotch had a deep fondness for Boston University, where, as a student, he met his wife Freda. She was at his bedside when he died at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Florida.

“He was a practical guy who could make things happen,” said Leonard Glantz, associate dean emeritus and a professor of health law, bioethics and human rights. “He thought that if you spot a problem, you should fix it. And that’s how the school was started. There was no grand plan. It was really an educational institution for the local public health professionals in New England.”

Scotch was born in Dorchester, in a working-class family headed by a homemaker from Lithuania and a bricklayer from Russia. He enlisted in the Army in 1946 and enrolled in Boston University on the G.I. Bill after his service.

Scotch earned a B.A. in psychology and a master’s in sociology from BU, then continued to complete his PhD studies in anthropology from the Northwestern University African Studies program. He conducted epidemiological studies of hypertension among Native Americans in Nevada, and Zulu tribes people in South Africa. Parts of his later research on the medical effects of stress were incorporated into the book Social Stress, co-edited with Sol Levine.

After teaching anthropology and medical epidemiology at Harvard University, Washington State University, and Johns Hopkins, Scotch was recruited to BU to start the Sociomedical Sciences program at MED.

Several years into this role, Scotch was asked to create a program in public health within the medical school to serve the needs of people working in the field. His modest upbringing helped influence his understanding of the difficulties faced by public health professionals who could use additional training but couldn’t leave their jobs, Glantz said. The school started as an educational program, not as a research institution, with an emphasis on a practice-based curriculum that would be immediately applicable in the real world.

“Founders of an institution leave a set of values to the institution, not just an organizational structure.  The school’s emphasis on teaching and on students is a reflection of the founder’s values,” Glantz said.

Scotch was the biggest influence on the career of Robert J. Master, chief executive officer of Commonwealth Care Alliance, who was a young faculty member during the School’s early days. Scotch was the driver of an academic environment that valued creativity and new approaches to teaching, Master said.

“There was an accountability that I hadn’t seen in other institutions. You had to be able to teach, because this was real tuition money being spent by real people, and Norm planted the stakes firmly in the ground that this will be a place of teaching excellence,“ Master said.

“The school was this laboratory of innovation and new ideas. It was a phenomenally creative place. We could do things and try things that we wouldn’t be able to do in most places.”

To reflect that emphasis on teaching, the School’s Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the education program of Boston University School of Public Health.

Scotch’s creative urges extended far outside the academic world into the realms of painting, photography, sculpting, writing — and poker playing.

Scotch’s role in the creation of today’s SPH, and in the successful model of part-time training for working professionals, was little known to those outside the School.

“It’s very characteristic of the way he lived his life,” Glantz said. “If someone came to him with a good idea, he would do what he could to see it happen. He didn’t really care about credit, he cared about doing good.”

Scotch was a life-long fan of all Boston sports teams, but his affinity for the underdog gave the Red Sox a special place in his heart, Glantz said.

“If you asked about the accomplishments in his life, he’d probably say ‘Harvard? So what. Hopkins? Big deal.’ What he really was happy about was the Red Sox winning the World Series in his lifetime.”

There will be no service. A memorial gathering in Boston is planned for spring, with the date and location to be announced.