Norman A. Scotch, the founding dean of the School of Public Health whose strong belief in the importance of public health education helped shape the school’s emphasis on excellence in teaching, died on November 25, 2014. He was 86.

Scotch (CAS’51, GRS’52) was driven by the principle that people working in public health should have opportunities for additional training so that they could be more effective—and do the most good. With that in mind, he helped create a practice-based curriculum, led a core group of academics and administrators through the accreditation process, and pushed to establish the school as a separate institution in 1979.

“He was a practical guy who could make things happen,” says Leonard Glantz, an SPH 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.”

Born in Dorchester, Mass., to a homemaker from Lithuania and a bricklayer from Russia, Scotch enlisted in the army in 1946 and, following his service, enrolled in Boston University on the GI Bill. He earned a BA in psychology and an MA in sociology from BU, as well as a PhD in anthropology from the Northwestern University African Studies program.

Scotch conducted epidemiological studies of hypertension among Native Americans in Nevada, and Zulu tribespeople in South Africa. Parts of his later research on the medical effects of stress were incorporated into the book Social Stress, which he coedited with Sol Levine.

Scotch taught anthropology and medical epidemiology at Harvard University, Washington State University, and Johns Hopkins, and then BU recruited him to start a sociomedical sciences program at the School of Medicine.

Several years into this role, Scotch established a program in public health within MED to serve the needs of professionals working in the field. His modest upbringing helped influence his understanding of the difficulties faced by public health professionals who wanted additional training but couldn’t leave their jobs, Glantz says.

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

Robert J. Master, chief executive officer of Commonwealth Care Alliance, was a young faculty member during the school’s early days. Scotch established an academic environment that valued creativity and new approaches to teaching, says Master. “There was an accountability that I hadn’t seen in other institutions,” says Master. “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. 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.”

In honor of Scotch’s dedication to teaching, SPH presents the annual Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching to an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the school’s education program.

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

“It’s very characteristic of the way he lived his life,” Glantz says. “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.”