DEATHS

For Ed Lane: May 14

A gathering is announced, in remembrance of Edward F. Lane, for Friday, May 14, at 4 p.m. in the Faculty Club Tea Room. The promised obituary of Mr. Lane is being prepared by his family for publication at a future date.

Dr. Herbert Nickens, Leader in Minority Health

Dr. Herbert W. Nick-ens, a former assistant professor of psychiatry at Penn who went on to groundbreaking positions in national minority health affairs, died on March 22. The 51-year-old vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges was believed to have suffered a heart attack while playing tennis in Kensington, Md., according to the Washington Post.

A 1969 Harvard alumnus, Dr. Nickens came to Penn initially to take his M.D. in psychiatry, which he received in 1973 along with a master of arts degree in sociology. He also won Penn's History of Medicine Prize that year, and later was to win the Phildelphia Medical Society's Kenneth Appel Award and the Laughlin National Psychiatric Endowment Fund Award.

He interned at Chestnut Hill Hospital, and after completing a residency in psychiatry at Yale, 1974-75, he returned to Penn as a resident and a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. After serving as an instructor in psychiatry in 1977-79, and chief resident during part of that period, he was named to the faculty as assistant professor and to the directorship of HUP's psychiatry emergency services in 1978.

In 1979 he took the additional post of Faculty Assistant to the President and the Provost.

Dr. Nickens became director of the Office of Policy, Planning and Analysis of the National Institute on Aging in 1985, and in 1986 he left Penn to become the first director of the Office of Minority Health at the Department of Health and Human Services.

He then joined the AAMC, where since 1988 he had been vice president for minority and community programs, specializing in initiatives aimed at training more minority physicians and improving minority health standards.

Dr. Nickens is survived by his wife, Patrice, and their two daughters, Caitlin and Chloe; his parents, Norman and Clarice; and a sister, Norma Allen.

Margaret F. Willson, Reading Specialist at GSE

Margaret Fraser Willson, an instuctor at the Graduate School of Education for more than 30 years, died on March 22 of congestive heart failure. She was 71 years old.

Mrs. Willson was born in Philadelphia, and graduated from Penn in 1949. She taught at Penn from 1950 through 1980, concentrating on helping educators teach reading to children and adults.

She is survived by her husband of 41 years, Robert A. Willson and a son, Robert C.F. Willson. Contributions may be made to Chester County Library, attn: Harriet Garosh, Children's Books, 450 Exton Square Parkway, Exton, PA 19341.


Almanac, Vol. 45, No. 26, March 30, 1999

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