Ebert Bows Out

Med School professors say that the rumors of Dean Robert H. Ebert's resignation have been flying around since the summer, and Ebert made it official last Friday in a prematurely tear-jerking au revoir with President Bok, announcing that he will be leaving in July 1977.

The dean came to Harvard 11 years ago, a stranger from the midwest, and after one year on the medical faculty became its dean. In turn, his major achievements have been focused more on the Medical School in its societal context than on the academic affairs of his faculty.

Ebert may ultimately be remembered for his pioneering efforts at what he calls "social medicine," in acknowledging a medical school's responsibility to the community and to its legislators.

The Harvard Community Health Plan, a Harvard-sponsored health care program that serves 50,000 residents, was Ebert's baby. He has also worked with the government on legislation that would instruct private med schools on their curricula in exchange for the federal funding. Medical schools, says Ebert, must increasingly be regarded as "public schools."

Such an attitude apparently has not endeared him to the conservative medical faculty, whose concerns are more academic. The two major efforts at reform that were initiated under Ebert within the school--a revision of the curriculum in which control was taken away from the basic scientists, and a conversion to pass/fail grading--were both reversed by later votes of the faculty.

Ebert was also criticized, in 1969 and 1972, for his connection with the large pharmaceutical company, Squibb-Beechnut Inc. At first, Ebert was a director of the firm, and resigned when students protested what they called the questionable ethics of serving a drug company and heading a medical school at the same time.

President Bok says he will begin a search for Ebert's successor in the winter by sounding out faculty. Yesterday, Bok said that the nature of the new dean is something he will only begin to consider later.

One Med School professor, who asked to remain anonymous, says it is likely that Ebert's successor will be more concerned with the direction of research within the University. Another basic scientist, who also declined to be named, said of Ebert, "There have been rumblings of discontent at the lack of vigor of his leadership."

And Ebert says that when he resigns almost two years hence, he will work on the issues that have always concerned him, on the "era of social medicine."