A Brief History of Health Science at NMSU The NMSU Department of Health Science

Three Leaders

Shown left to right, former health science department heads Henry Lasch, Jeffrey Brandon and Stephen Arnold. Not shown is former health science department head John Savage.

Dr. Henry A. Lasch was the founder and developer of the Health Science program and was responsible for requesting and receiving approval for an undergraduate degree in Health Science. His final contribution before retirement was to recommend and successfully obtain administrative approval to establish Health Science as a separate department.

Dr. Lasch had experience teaching and organizing Health Science programs in California before joining the faculty at New Mexico State University.

He soon became aware that Health Science was not a familiar title in New Mexico. There were two health courses offered by the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, a general health course and a school health course. Both courses were listed in the catalogue under the prefix of P.E. His first move was to change these courses to Health Science. This opened the way for rapid expansion. New courses were added each semester until a complete curriculum was established.

Two new faculty positions were approved to teach in the expanding program, namely, Dr. John Savage and Jo Ann Hill. They proved to be competent and dedicated to share the teaching and assist in the development of a well-rounded Health Science Curriculum.

Dr. Lasch met with the Faculty Senate to request a major degree in Health Science and declare his intent to establish a separate department at a later point in time. One senate member expressed the opinion that health was merely a part of Physical Education. Anticipating this comment, he informed the senate members that Health Science was widely established as a separate department and administration in most of the states. His request was approved with no further comments or objections.

Shortly prior to Dr. Lasch’s retirement, he asked Dr. Savage to take over the department administration. His competent leadership and Dr. Lasch’s nation-wide research study presented to Dean Saunders, Health Science was incorporated into a new college which is now entitled the “College of Health and Social Services.” Without the support of Dr. Jack Saunders, Dean of the College of Education and Dr. Donald Roush, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Health Science might not have included in the new college. The change that moved Health Science from the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation to the new College was given full support by Dr. James B. Delamater, Chairman of the department.

The College expanded rapidly with new programs, the addition of graduate degrees and an increase in faculty specializations. A new building for the College of Health and Social Services was dedicated in the year 2004.

Dr. Lowery Davis, Dean of the new College and Dr. Jeffrey Brandon, the current Dean, provided the initiative, vision, and leadership that established the College of Health and Social Services as a fully accepted College on the campus, throughout New Mexico and Nationwide.

All these achievements grew from a discipline unfamiliar to New Mexico schools and colleges.

For Dr. Lasch, it is the fulfillment of a goal to build a new program which now provides unlimited opportunities to serve the students at New Mexico State University, the community, the State of New Mexico and the Southwest.

There should be no limitations on the future development of Health Science at New Mexico State University and nationwide.

New Mexico State University, in the early stages of Health Science, reached out to many school districts by offering extension programs in several areas of Health.

Dr. Lasch and Professor Ed Farris, founder of Police Science (now Criminal Justice) worked as an effective team to take the first extension courses on drug education alcohol and smoking to several public school districts in New Mexico. The workshops had a large attendance of teachers, administrators, school nurses, counselors and law enforcement officers.

Nutrition and Family Life courses were also included later as part of the extension programs.

All of the extension courses utilized the services of expert consultants from many parts of the United States. These outreach programs received high praise and evaluation from Public School Administrators.

Finally, after Dr. Savage retired as Department Chairman, the Department was under the capable leadership of Dr. Jeffrey Brandon until he was promoted to the Dean’s Office.