Proceedings of the Board of Regents (1969-1972)

JULY MEETING, 1970

595

sorts and conditions of personnel within his organization, minding the wellbeing of each and seeking to inspire in each a personal commitment to his
individual duty.
A perennial director of Michigan Medical Service, he has presided over
the Michigan Hospital Association and the Tri-State Hospital Assembly,
receiving, in 1960, the Assembly's highest service award. He is a past president, and regent of long standing, of the American College of Hospital
Administrators. His principal monument is nevertheless the century-old institution which he has nurtured, its firm but flexible organization, and the high
confidence which it inspires in the medical profession and among the general
public.
The Regents of the University, who now appoint Dr. Kerlikowske Director Emeritus of University Hospital, offer this vigorous and devoted physician
and administrator their warm esteem, their deep gratitude, and their personal
good wishes for a happy retirement.
Dean WILLARD CLIFFORD OLSON of the School of Education is W. C. Olson
commencing his formal retirement after forty-one years on the active faculty. Retirement
A native Minnesotan, Dean Olson earned three degrees from the University of Minnesota, taught in. that University for six years, and served for an
interim period as a principal and school superintendent in Minnesota schools.
He came to The University of Michigan in 1929, with the rank of Associate
Professor of Education, to direct research in the new University Elementary
School. He was promoted to Professor in 1935, was appointed also Professor
of Psychology in the Literary. College in 1946, and was made Dean of the
School of Education in 1952.
Dean Olson enjoys an international reputation for his research into the
patterns of growth and mental development in children. It was his mission
ceaselessly to remind teachers and school administrators of individual differences among children and of the need. to accommodate these in all systems of
collective education. His published works, of which the best known is the
book Child Development, have been widely used throughout the United
States and have appeared in numerous foreign translations. Active in professional associations internationally, he attended innumerable conferences
abroad as association official, participant, and United States delegate. Within
the country he lectured widely, presided over research societies, was an officer
and council member of organizations devoted to the several fields of education and psychology, and served as a committeeman and consultant of the
National Research Council, the United States Office of Education, and other
federal agencies or bodies.
Locally, Dean Olson was of necessity deeply involved in those relationships, among schools of the University and between the University and the
public schools, which defined the University's participation in public school
education, and he assumed as well a heavy burden of consultative and committee work in adjoining fields. In the Education School, he sought rather to
foster than to direct the programs of instruction and research. He was careful
to preserve, in research, a tentative and experimental spirit and, in action,
as one of his colleagues expressed it, "the ideal temper for professional service."
The Regents of the University salute this tireless and versatile scholar
and administrator, with gratitude alike for his serving this institution well
and for his enhancing its fame. They now cordially extend to him all privileges of the titles for which he is eligible: Dean Emeritus of the School of
Education and Professor Emeritus of Education and of Psychology.
VIi. DEATHS
There were no deaths reported since the June meeting.