Chester Pierce

Chester Middlebrook Pierce (born March 4, 1927 in Glen Cove , Long Island , New York - † September 23, 2016 ) was an American psychiatrist who researched and taught at Harvard University . He was Professor of Education and Psychiatry at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health's Department of Behavioral Sciences, and was also a professor emeritus at the university . He was also a psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for nearly 25 years .

Life

Raised in a town on Long Island , New York , Pierce earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1948. During his student days, on October 11, 1947, he was the first African-American American football player to enter  a university for white students in the southern states - still in the days of racial segregation - (see history of the University of Virginia ). Pierce served in the US Navy and was promoted to Commander (comparable to a frigate captain ).

In 1952, Pierce earned a medical degree ( MD ) from Harvard Medical School. 1966 to 1967 Pierce examined together with Jay T. Shurlay the psychophysiology of men in sleep and wake states before, during and after stays at the South Pole station. In 1977 Pierce became the US delegate (to the National Academy of Sciences ) for the Working Group on Human Biology and Medicine of the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research . Pierce also became President of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN).

In the 1980s, Pierce Chairman of the Committee for polar was Biomedicine ( Committee on Polar Biomedicine ) of the polar research committee of the National Research Council of the USA ( United States National Research Council ).

After 28 years of teaching, Pierce retired in the spring of 1996. In 1997 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Pierce has published more than 180 articles, reviews, and books. His research topics were mainly extreme environmental conditions - especially medical research in polar or generally cold regions -, as well as media and sports medicine as well as racism . In dealing with the subject of racism, Pierce introduced the concepts of micro-aggression and micro-trauma and spoke of racism as an environmental pollutant .

Pierce was also a senior advisor to the Peace Corps , national adviser to the General physician of the US Air Force ( Surgeon General of the United States Air Force ) as well as a consultant for educational children's television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company .

Awards

Pierce was winner of several awards, including the Special Recognition Award from the US National Medical Association (an organization of black physicians in the US) and the appointment as an honorary member of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ( Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists ) and "Honorary Fellow of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists . Pierce also held honorary doctorates from Westfield College, London, and Tufts University .

Named after Chester Pierce are a scholarship for black medical students interested in research ( Chester Pierce Scholars of the Psychiatry Department of the National Medical Association) and the Antarctic Pierce Peak . Pierce has also won awards for film productions in the US and abroad.

Quote

Especially in conservative religious circles in the USA, Chester Pierce cites the following quote, in slightly different versions:

Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our founding fathers, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being ... It's up to you, teachers, to make all of these sick children well by creating the international children of the future.

(1972 in the keynote address to the Association for Childhood Education International in front of about 1000 teachers in Denver)

literature

• Ezra EH Griffith: Race and Excellence: My Dialogue with Chester Pierce. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City IA 1998, ISBN 978-0-87745-628-5 (Griffith is also a black psychiatrist at Harvard University, but from a different ethnic background)
• The Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory's Thyroid Function Study: A Radiological Risk and Ethical Analysis . Committee on Evaluation of 1950s Air Force Human Health Testing in Alaska Using Radioactive Iodine. National Academy Press, 1996, p. 99: Appendix G. Biographical Sketches of Committee Members (English); Retrieved March 19, 2007

Web links

• Short biography with a photo of Chester Pierce (English)
• Article about Pierce's engagement as the first black American football player at a university for whites in the southern states ( Memento of May 24, 2004 on the Internet Archive ) (English; with a photo of the Harvard team including Pierce)
• Another article about Pierce's engagement as the first black American football player at a university for whites in the southern states ( Memento from January 6, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 28 kB; English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ezra EH Griffith: Chester Middlebrook Pierce, MD: A Life That Mattered , doi: 10.1176 / appi.pn.2016.11a27 , accessed October 1, 2017
2. ↑ Carl Sterling Parnell: From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: Chapter 3: The National Education Association ( Memento of June 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) on the conservative website www.americanprotest.net (February 7, 2006). (accessed March 20, 2007), with reference to: Gerry Gannon, GE Krekelberg: The National Education Association Union (NEA) . In: The Capitalist , May 14, 2005 (www.thecapitalist.net)