Associate Dean Gareth Green to Retire

Gareth Green, associate dean for professional education and professor of environmental health, will retire on July 1, capping off a successful career and an innovative and energetic nine years at HSPH.

Green wears three hats at the school: he directs the Master of Public Health Program, leads the Office for Professional Education, and is a professor with ongoing research interests in the field of environmental health.

The Master of Public Health (MPH) program was reorganized the year Green came to the school, the new program requiring students to choose a career-oriented concentration. Asked in 1990 about hopes for the renovated program, he said, "We're trying to prepare students to be competent in a specific area of public health while understanding the principles common to all public health fields. We want to strike a balance between the generalist and the specialist."

Provost Harvey Fineberg, former Dean of the Faculty of Public Health, attests to the success of this approach: "Gareth Green has masterfully led the MPH program during a critical period in its development. He invigorated and transformed the academic content of the program, while enabling its enrollments to grow by 20 percent."

Green's interests in professional education have been influential both at the school, through his coordination of progressive educational opportunities for HSPH faculty, and worldwide, through the school's continuing professional education endeavors.

"He led us from our existence as an 'office' to our current status as the Center for Continuing Professional Education," said David Shore, assistant dean for continuing professional education. "Gareth has always looked beyond today's boundaries to see what new and exciting things can be done with education." He has been a leader in the school's initiatives in distance learning and, more recently, was pioneering the school's efforts to incorporate World Wide Web-based technology into the curriculum.

In addition to his leadership role on the administrative side of the school, Green has also enjoyed a distinguished academic and research life while at HSPH. He co-taught introductory courses in environmental health, and his research has focused on the evaluation of risk to human health of inhaled toxic substances.

His intellectual prowess was recognized beyond the halls of HSPH. In 1994, he chaired the National Institutes of Health Technology Assessment Panel on the Persian Gulf Experience and Health. In 1995, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "landmark environmental health research on lung defense mechanisms, for distinguished leadership in health professions education, and for wise counsel on national health science policy."

Green's arrival at HSPH in 1990 was, in one sense, a homecoming for him. The son of a Harvard Medical School faculty member, Green was born and raised in Brookline. He attended the nearby Boston Latin School before crossing the Charles River to earn a bachelor's degree at Harvard in 1953. He then returned to the Longwood Campus to attend HMS, where he earned his MD in 1957.

After completing his education, Green held faculty positions at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, where he chaired the Department of Environmental Health Sciences from 1976 to 1990.

Green will be missed by many at the school. "We will miss his gentle humor, unfailing kindness, and remarkable integrity," said Laurel Landers, program coordinator in the Office for Professional Education.

"He is a class act," said Shore. "He has always balanced the human with the professional- in many ways, he embodies the values of public health."

"He is an outstanding scientist and visionary with a longstanding commitment to education in the fields of public health," said Acting Dean James Ware. "He has provided exceptional leadership to continuing professional education, the MPH program, and innumerable other enterprises at the school. I'm sure the school community will miss Gareth's inspirational presence and join me in offering him our best wishes for his retirement."

Associate Dean Gareth Green in action, addressing Summer Session students a few years ago.

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