Joseph Deck - 1992
MHS 1954 Graduate
Joseph C. Deck, Class of 1954, was nominated by Jay Clark. Deck was born in Canton, but grew up in Minerva. Two early developmental milestones stand out in his recollections. The first is that his grandfather, a baseball fanatic, sparked his interest in the baseball rivalry between the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox. Ted Williams was the Star of the Red Sox then, and Deck worshipped him. He dates his abiding interest in Massachusetts to those early baseball memories. The second developmental milestone was a "fantastic" high school mathematics teacher, Miss Wachtel. She had, very, very high expectations for all of her students. He learned more in that class than any other.
Deck began college at Duquesne University as a pre-med student. Between his junior and senior years, he worked for Gulf Research. During that summer he was accepted at St. Louis University Medical School. After a year and a half of medical school, he really thought he could make more of a contribution in science than in medicine. Since he did not have an undergraduate degree, he returned to Duquesne University and graduated in 1960 with a double major in biology and chemistry.
He attended graduate school as a part-time student at the University of Pittsburgh and then to the University of Illinois where he completed his Ph.D. He accepted a teaching offer from the University of Louisville where later became the assistant dean of health professions, followed by two years as dean.
He was then offered a position at the University of Massachusetts, which he considered the best in New England. He was recently named Interim Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Prior to this selection he had been dean of the College of Arts and Sciences since 1988.
He and his wife, Jo, are the parents of four children. They live near the university. Joe said, "I am not too far from Boston, near all kinds of really great things. One could not have a better combination of events, with all of your life coming together and realizing everything for which you had ever hoped.”
Among his many grants and awards are a $400,000 total in grants; and the Eastman Kodak Award for the Outstanding Chemistry Graduate Student, University of Illinois in1965; the Excellence in Teaching Award, School of Chemical Sciences, University of Illinois, 1979; and, in 1986, the University of Louisville Outstanding Performance Award for effectiveness in behalf of Affirmative Action.