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Avedis Donabedian
Avedis Donabedian, the Nathan Sinai Distinguished Professor of Public Health recognized throughout the world for his work in the area of quality assessment and monitoring of health services, died Nov. 8, 2000 at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor. He was died Nov. 5, 2000 at his home in San Francisco. He is survived by Geoffrey, his son; Graceann, his daughter-in-law; Margo Michael, his dear friend and former wife of Ann Arbor; and many colleagues and friends throughout the world with whom he shared inquiry and interests. Don was educated at Harvard University where he received the degrees S.B. (physics) and Ph.D. (social psychology), and the University of Chicago where he received an M.A. (sociology).
Michael, a social psychologist with a background in the natural sciences, retired from the University in 1981 and moved to San Francisco, where he continued his active scholarship and other professional activities along with his ever deepening engagement with the natural environment, human nature and self. He was a gifted teacher and mentor of many people from a wide variety of backgrounds to whom he attentively listened, vigorously responded and thoughtfully challenged, and in ongoing relationships lovingly supported. Don was widely respected and often sought out for his deep honesty and openness in examining the most difficult societal problems in ways that included rigorous attention to existing knowledge grounded in science and, increasingly over time, other epistemologies as well. Coupled with this strength was his well-recognized and very insightful understanding of human nature and its implications for knowing, illusion and moral responsibility, and his clarity in discussing these complex and often subtle topics. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the World Academy of Art and Science. He also was a member of the Club of Rome, a founding member of the U.S. Association of the Club of Rome and a member of the Global Business Network.
Michael came to the University in 1967 after many years in Washington, where he worked in different positions that included ones with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Science Foundation, the Brookings Institution and the Peace Research Institute. At Michigan he held a joint appointment as professor of planning and public policy in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and professor of psychology. Don was a leader in the University’s Rackham-based, interdisciplinary Ph. D. program, Urban and Regional Planning (now the Urban, Technological and Environmental Planning Program in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning). He was a major contributor to this program’s core seminar, other courses and individual work with students. Also while at Michigan, he was a program director at the Institute for Social Research in its Center for Research on the Utilization of Scientific Knowledge.
Throughout his career, Michael focused on a wide range of emerging societal problems and the usefulness and limitations of scientific knowledge in responding to these problems and in understanding processes of individual, organizational and social change. Early in his career he investigated and wrote about the human impacts of nuclear attack, dynamics of arms control, social impacts of space exploration and implications of cybernation. In mid-career, he investigated the prospects for youth in the face of unprecedented social changes, impacts of new technologies and technology assessment, growing urban problems and the implications of conducting long-range social planning as a process of societal change.
His books include Cybernation: The Silent Conquest (1962), The Next Generation: Prospects Ahead for the Youth of Today and Tomorrow (1962), The Unprepared Society: Planning for a Precarious Future (1968) and Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn: The Social Psychology of Changing Toward Future-Responsive Societal Learning. (1973, republished in 1997 with a new introduction).
In the final years of his life, Michael focused on the complexity and uncertainty associated with the increasing scale and intensity of interacting impacts of human systems and biophysical systems and on the latest research on human functioning. His final work and writing as he described it focused on: “(1) the function of myth systems in social change, especially how beliefs about human nature affect personal, organizational and societal change and (2) understanding better the role of unconscious needs and motives (genetically and culturally sourced) in the behavior of leaders, decision makers and organization members and their interplay with the social construction of reality.” These are among the most important topics for better understanding the possibilities and limitations of the growing pursuit of sustainability in the face of the increasing evidence of global and local unsustainability both environmentally and socially.
His most recent and, to my knowledge, final publication is a challenging culminating statement formulated and tested over the period that he knew would be his final opportunity to communicate these ideas. In his characteristic way he initially presented the core ideas of this article orally. He did this in his 1998 remarks at the time he was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters by the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center of San Francisco. Subsequently, he offered these ideas orally and in writing for discussion and feedback to other scholars and practitioners with whom he was collaborating on issues surrounding the pursuit of sustainability. This led to the final presentation of these ideas in “Some Observations with Regard to a Missing Elephant,” that was published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (Winter 2000, 8–16). After carefully describing the extent and implications of human ignorance and its roots, he leaves his readers with eight ways he found helpful in responding to this state of not knowing. To quote him in part, “Number seven is that one must be a learner/teacher, a wary guide, an explorer in the wilderness. Be question askers all the time, not answer givers” (p.16). Donald Michael exemplified such a learner/teacher, guide and explorer, as well as the practice of compassion that he advocates in his eighth and final suggestion to his readers. “Be as self-conscious as possible, as much of the time as possible and thereby recognize that we all live in illusion, we all live in ignorance, and we all search for and need meaning. We all need help facing that reality, and that help goes by the name of practicing compassion”(p. 16).
I am thankful for Don Michael’s life and truth-seeking, and I am grateful to have been his student, faculty colleague and friend.
Henry Meyer
Henry J. Meyer, professor emeritus of social work, Born April 9, 1913, Meyer was raised in Mississippi and later attended Michigan, where he earned bachelor’s (1934), master’s (1937) and doctoral (1939) degrees in sociology.
He is survived by wife Suzanne of Ann Arbor; children Joseph (Jane) Meyer of Baltimore and Claire (Asher) Galed of Huntington Woods, Mich.; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Dec. 10 at Schorling Auditorium in the School of Education Building. Memorial contributions may be made to the Henry J. Meyer Scholarship Fund, School of Social Work, 1080 South University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, or to a charity of choice.
William B. Stapp
William B. Stapp, professor emeritus of resource planning and conservation in the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE), born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and raised in Ann Arbor and Coronado, Calif. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from the U-M. He created the Outdoor Program and was conservation coordinator with the Ann Arbor Public Schools before becoming a professor at the U-M, where he taught until retirement in 1993. He also helped plan the first Earth Day in 1970.
Stapp’s special interest was international environmental education, and he was the first chief of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Environmental Education Section. His environmental education program was the first to be unanimously accepted by all 135 UNESCO member nations. During and subsequent to his two-year tenure in Paris, France, Stapp and his wife Gloria visited and consulted with representatives of more than 120 countries on environmental education issues. In many countries, he worked with students and adults at the community level to find solutions to water quality problems and other environmental issues.
Concerned about world peace, he founded the Global Rivers Environmental Education Program (GREEN) in 1989. Most recently, he worked on a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-sponsored rivers project between North and South Korea.
In addition to his worldwide influence upon environmental concerns, “Bill Stapp, the personable, soft-spoken, constant educator, made an enormous impact upon hundreds of Ann Arbor kids, my three among them, and upon thousands of adults throughout Michigan,” said friend and colleague Alfred W. Storey, associate professor emeritus of speech.
“When Bill was with the Ann Arbor Public Schools in the late ’50s and early ’60s,” Storey said, “he conducted numerous field trips with elementary school children-teaching them about nature, the environment, and how to get along with each other and the environment.
“During the late ’60s through the ’80s, Bill gave unstintingly of his time to participate, under the auspices of the University Extension Service, in off-campus lectures, conferences and correspondence courses,” added Storey, who also is director emeritus of the University Extension Service. “In this way, in addition to his on-campus teaching and research, he helped educate citizens of the state with regard to environmental concerns of the future.”
For many years, Stapp cooperated with public school systems in launching environmental monitoring programs in communities throughout the United States, especially in Michigan. He initiated the successful Rouge River recovery project, which involved students from 40 Detroit-area school systems 1987–89.
He was recognized with numerous national and international awards and nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1993. At the U-M, he was named to a Thurnau Professorship, which recognizes and rewards faculty for outstanding contributions to undergraduate education.
Stapp is survived by his wife of 48 years, Gloria; sons David and Richard; daughter Deborah; daughters-in-law Lauren Stapp and Linda Goldman; son-in-law Terry Webster; and three grandchildren. Donations in his memory may be made to an environmental organization.
