Dean, Graduate Studies and Research, Baylor Univ., Waco, TX, 1979 to 1992
Let me admit that my specialty is not in medicine or hospital administration. And my only contact with the Army was service in 1945-46 where I trained as an artilleryman at Fort Knox and rose to the rank of corporal in the Special Training Unit and Personal Affairs.
My Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania was in English literature of the Renaissance. Before becoming graduate dean I had served as the chairman of the English Department at Baylor and had previously taught in various universities in the United States and abroad. I followed Dean William G. Toland, who, incidentally, had a Ph.D. in philosophy, but he had a more exciting career in the Army Air Corps as a navigator since his plane, towing a glider, was shot down over The Netherlands, and with valiant effort he returned to American lines.
So associating with the program at Fort Sam brought a new dimension to me professionally and personally. The appointment came at a time in my life of changes, for in July of 1979 my first wife, Linn, died of Lou Gehrig's Disease.
When Baylor began the association with the U. S. Army fifty years ago, it was a natural link even though the distance between Waco and San Antonio was long. But Baylor had a college of medicine and a dental school in Dallas, so off-campus programs were not unknown. (The Baylor College of Medicine later moved to Houston and is linked with the rest of the university in name only; similarly the dental school broke away from the university at the D.D.S. level and remained linked through the graduate degrees at the master's level so long as I served as the graduate dean. It is now part of the Texas A&M system though retaining the "Baylor" name. That's confusing, isn't it?)
The U.S. Army-Baylor University Graduate Program in Health Care Administration flourished to such an extent that the Army wished to expand the link by beginning in 1971 a graduate program in physical therapy, also leading to the master's degree.
That the degrees conferred in the HCA program as also the PT program are closely linked with the university and thus are identical to those conferred at the parent institution in Waco means that they have to be forged in regard to curriculum and course content, faculty-rank qualifications, service by faculty from Fort Sam on graduate committees in Waco, and oral examinations with representatives from Waco in participation. One of the great pleasures I experienced was that, through a suggestion from Dick Harder, I made numerous visits to hospitals and medical centers where HCA persons who had finished course work at Fort Sam were doing their year of residency as they completed their theses. After each visit I submitted a report on the students and the quality of supervision they were receiving as they rotated through a facility to learn the function of various departments and areas of military medicine. Those reports were filed with the director of the program in San Antonio and with a responsible officer, usually the executive officer, at the facility. Those visits also allowed me to publicize the programs in HCA and PT to prospective applicants for entrance.
Nearly twenty facilities were visited. They varied from large ones like Walter Reed and the Bethesda Naval Center, Fitzsimons, and Tripler to Travis Air Force Base, Fort Carson, Keller, and Fort Stewart. My wife Alys, who had served three years as an Army nurse during the Vietnam Era, joined me on almost all of these trips and shared the kind hospitality from numerous hosts.
For me the opportunity not only to make numerous trips to the Academy of Health Sciences but also to visit the installations from the East Coast to the West Coast and even to Hawaii and to witness the annual gatherings of Army reunions of HCA people in Chicago brought expansion of my knowledge and happiness through personal friendships. Encounters with potential students proved the serious connection with the University.
One of the memorable visits was made in October of 1984 to Fort Ord, California. LTC Lozada contacted me ahead of my visit to ask for my sizes of clothes in order to outfit me in military attire for a trip in a MASH vehicle. I have the large photograph of me in "my" uniform in front of his jeep hanging in a hall of my home. Today Jake Lozada, Ph.D., is the Assistant Secretary for Health Resources and Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
To list all the persons whose lives contributed to the strength of the HCA-Baylor program would overload this small chapter with words of thanks. Links that have extended beyond the time of my service have remained with several persons, for instance; Dick Harder, who "wisely counseled me as he mentored many persons in the specialty. Jack 0. Lanier gave the warmth of friendship in a period of stress in my life. Don Ebner showed particularly strong leadership at the Academy. Alys and I recall the kindness of Dr. Quinn Becker, a friend of Alys' from Tripler days and later Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. Among the numerous PT leaders were close friends Joicey Putnam and David Greathouse.
A cherished experience occurred in July, 1997, in a ceremony in Blesse Auditorium at the Academy. I received a plaque as a Distinguished Member of the Army Medical Department. Also another plaque was given to me. It had the two stars of a major general (the "rank" I enjoyed when we stayed at the Sam Houston House or the Foulois House at the Academy) and the two stripes as a corporal in World War II. It hangs proudly in my study at home.
Baylor University has benefited from the association with the U. S. Government in this educational endeavor. Those hundreds of graduates have created an honorable and capable society contributing to the health of our nation through the military service.