THE ENTIRE FIELD OF NUTRITION was another area to which Mayer devoted special attention. He had mentioned in his inaugural address in 1976 the possibility of involving Tufts in an expansion of work in nutrition, building on a foundation already existing but, in his estimation, not fully exploited. Tufts' involvement in nutrition had begun more than sixty years earlier, with the establishment of a food clinic at the Boston Dispensary even before the New England Medical Center had been created. The successor to the food clinic was the Frances Stern Nutrition Center, established in 1918, which not only trained nutritionists but by the 1970s provided extensive patient services in the Medical Center hospitals. Academic aspects of the program were coordinated through the Department of Education in Medford. Thanks in part to the efforts of President Mayer, government policymakers had been in recent years paying increased attention to nutrition as a part of agricultural and economic planning, and health awareness.

The first step in enlarging Tufts' involvement in the field of nutrition was the approval by the trustees in November 1976 of the creation of a Nutrition Institute on the Medford campus. Funded initially by $75,000 in grants from private sources, it was established "to further research, education, and public service" in the field, and

Stanley N. Gershoff, formerly a professor of nutrition in the Harvard School of Public Health, was appointed director and Professor of Nutrition in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in June 1977, and a teaching and research staff was assembled. Courses were offered that were open to both graduate and undergraduate students. A Department of Nutrition was created by the trustees in 1978 in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with authority to grant degrees in nutrition, and Gershoff was appointed chairman of the department. In May 1981 the trustees approved the creation of a graduate School of Nutrition, on the president's recommendation.

The division into both an Institute and a department, with Gershoff serving simultaneously as the director of one and the chairman of the other, was considered "administratively inefficient and confusing." The creation of a school would go far to solve such problems as faculty appointments and tenure, and the handling of funds.

The School of Nutrition, the first in the nation, was headquartered on the Medford campus and Gershoff was appointed dean of the new school. Like the organizations out of which it was created, the School of Nutrition was interdisciplinary in character and brought together biomedical, social, political, and behavorial scientists. The first class, consisting of both master's and PhD candidates, totalled forty-four in the first year of its operation (1981). The first class of master's candidates (seventeen) received their degrees in 1982. In the spring of 1983, forty-eight graduate students were registered, divided evenly among those interested in laboratory science, social science, and the Frances Stern nutrition programs. It was flexible in design to provide for individual interests. Some students could concentrate on nutrition policy while others could study the relationship between nutrition and behavior or the biomedical aspects of the field.

Although no undergraduate degree program was offered, undergraduates could enroll without the instructor's permission in four courses. The school attracted some 200 undergraduates in 1985-86.

Another building block in the elaborate and interlocking nutrition complex built by Mayer was a national nutrition research center constructed with federal funds in downtown Boston adjacent to the

The first federal allocation (of $2 million) in 1977 was to make engineering and architectural studies, and Tufts was designated as the manager of the project. An estimated $20 million would follow for construction, with annual federal appropriations of about $7 million to operate the Center. The final cost was $35 million, and annual appropriations exceeded $9 million. This rather unusual partnership between the public and private sectors, which was given wide publicity, was embodied in a Memorandum of Understanding in 1979 by President Mayer on behalf of Tufts, and by the Science and Educational Administration of the USDA and the National Institute on Aging of the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

The necessary site having been acquired by Tufts through the Boston Redevelopment Authority and turned over to the federal government, groundbreaking for the Center took place on 9 November 1979. The structure was completed in its entirety and was opened on 5 November 1982. The next steps were to integrate the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging "into the educational and administrative fabric of the University," and to complete and stabilize the roster of personnel. Hamish N. Munro, the first director of the Center, was formerly Professor of Nutrition at MIT and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He relinquished the post, which he had held since 1980, three years later in order to concentrate his efforts on teaching and research.

One project related to the field of nutrition never progressed much beyond the planning stage. A proposal was made to acquire the Bradford Hotel in downtown Boston to house elderly and/or

During the Mayer administration there developed a broadly defined Division of Health Sciences which embraced the medical, the dental, and the veterinary schools, all located entirely or in part on the Boston campus. The five basic science departments, shared by all three, became part of the "one medicine" concept of which Mayer spoke so often. These basic sciences served not only those schools but formed what was known as the Arthur M. Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences. Its purpose, as first outlined, was to develop and to coordinate research and training in the medical, dental, and veterinary schools and to promote continuing education in the field of biomedical science.

The Sackler School had originated as a gift in 1979 from Arthur M. Sackler to be used to renovate and/or construct laboratory facilities on the Boston campus. The agreement between Tufts and Sackler was revised in 1980 to include contributions by Raymond and Mortimer Sackler. Members of the Boston campus who were currently members of the faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in Medford became the nucleus of the faculty of the new school which was officially established on 1 July 1980. Murray Blair, acting dean of the medical school following Cavazos' resignation in 1980 to assume the presidency of Texas Tech, was also appointed dean of the Sackler School. Blair resigned from the medical school in 1982 upon the appointment of Robert I. Levy as dean, and left the Sackler

Louis Lasagna, an internationally known pharmacologist, became the next dean of the Sackler School in 1984. He had come from a senior faculty position at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. The close relationship intended between the Sackler School and the Tufts medical school was emphasized by Lasagna's simultaneous appointment as academic dean and professor of pharmacology in the medical school.

Meanwhile, a new administrative position - Vice-President for Health Sciences - had been created in 1981 in order to provide overall supervision and coordination of the basic science departments in Boston which served the medical, dental, and veterinary schools. Robert I. Levy served as the first appointee as well as dean of the medical school after Blair's departure. One of Levy's responsibilities was to deal with the thirty-five hospitals then affiliated in some way with Tufts. He resigned as dean in January 1983, and as vice-president the following June. Henry H. Banks, a graduate of the medical school in 1945 and professor and chairman of orthopedic surgery who had joined Tufts in 1969 after eighteen years at Harvard, became the dean of the medical school in 1983.

The Sackler name appeared at Tufts in another connection besides that of the new graduate school in the health sciences. Since 1963 the need for adequate medical-dental library facilities had become increasingly urgent. Their lack had been so serious that the reaccreditation of the medical school had been in jeopardy. Plans were discussed for many years before any concrete action was taken, but by 1977 the concept of a Health Sciences Education building for the Boston campus, including new library facilities, had advanced to such a stage that the architectural firm of Hoskins, Scott, Taylor & Partners was employed to design a building. A year later, a project task force was assigned to plan programs and resources. Their assignment was completed in October. Between 1978 and early 1980, negotiations to acquire property took place, and in the winter of 1981 a $15 million federal grant was obtained through the National Library of Medicine. The funding was made possible largely because of the presence on the campus of the federally funded Nutrition Research Center and the federally initiated regional School of Veterinary Medicine. An executive committee was formed to plan building strategies. The total cost exceeded $20 million.

As proposed in 1977, the building was to adequately house the much-needed library, medical and veterinary administrative offices, seminar rooms, an auditorium, and room for two academic departments.