THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 2, 1996 TAG: 9607020230
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 46 lines
Dr. William Dixon Mayer, who served as president of the Eastern Virginia Medical School during eight years of growth, died Sunday. He was 67.
``He gave EVMS an attitude of `can do,' of pride in accomplishment,'' said Dr. Gary D. Hodgen, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and president of the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine. ``He created an environment of trust and high expectations.''
Mayer was president of EVMS from September 1979 to October 1987. Previously, he had served as assistant chief medical director for academic affairs at the Veterans Administration's central office in Washington.
Before that, he was dean of the University of Missouri School of Medicine and director of the University Medical Center from 1967 to 1974.
He received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University in 1951 and his M.D. from the University of Rochester in 1957.
Mayer was at the helm of EVMS during a critical period of growth for the medical school. During his tenure, student enrollment rose from 219 to 369 and the full-time faculty expanded from 122 to 194.
Under his guidance, Hoffheimer Hall was brought into service, Ghent Family Practice was organized and Portsmouth Family Medicine was completed.
And Hodgen credits his own presence in Norfolk to Mayer.
Hodgen was ready to take a post with the Harvard University medical school in 1983, he said, when Mayer met with him over lunch and persuaded him to come to Norfolk.
Mayer said Hodgen's talents were needed to guide a fledgling program that would, in a few short years, emerge as one of the world's leading institutes of reproductive medicine.
``He asked me what it would take to have me come to EVMS,'' Hodgen recalled Monday. Told what Harvard had offered, Mayer responded: ``We'll meet it and beat it in every way. And he kept his word. I've never regretted it. I've never looked back for a moment.''
Mayer continued to support the Jones Institute through its formative years, playing an important role in helping the program obtain one of its most important grants, from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1986. That funding is now valued at more than $75 million.
``It could not have been done without the ardent, unbending support of William Mayer,'' Hodgen said. ILLUSTRATION: Dr. William Dixon Mayer by CNB