Quigg Newton, Who Supported Urban Medicine -- Rest in Peace

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

Subject: Quigg Newton, Who Supported Urban Medicine

Author:
Dies at 91

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: April 19, 2003 2:16:57 EDT

Quigg Newton, who was the mayor of Denver and the president of the University of Colorado before becoming the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a philanthropic foundation based in Manhattan that increased its support for urban health care during his tenure, died on April 4 in Denver. He was 91.

Mr. Newton was the president of the Commonwealth Fund from 1964 to 1975. In that time, the fund greatly expanded its work on medical education, encouraging medical schools to become more involved in community health issues and helping to establish medical schools to address shortages of doctors and medical centers, Mary Mahon, a spokeswoman for the fund, said yesterday.

In 1970 the fund gave a total of $1.2 million to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in East Harlem, an affiliate of the City University of New York, to help them devise urban health care programs.

Mr. Newton said at the time that the two grants were in response to a "widely shared conviction that the dangerous deterioration and breakdown of medical and hospital services in cities across the country must somehow be reversed."

While he was president, the Commonwealth Fund provided seed money for the Harvard Community Health Plan. By late 1970, the plan had moved out of the experimental stage a year after it began and was becoming financially self-sustaining. The Harvard plan was the first prepaid health care delivery program by a university for people of varied income levels.

Mr. Newton became the fund's president after being president of the University of Colorado from 1956 to 1963. Under his leadership, there were substantial increases in graduate enrollment, faculty salaries and library spending.

But the university was also shaken by controversies. One arose in 1962 when an article in the campus newspaper described Senator Barry Goldwater, the Arizona Republican, as "a fool, a mountebank, a murderer."

Mr. Newton removed the newspaper's student editor, citing "the best interest of the university." Several weeks later, he said he would step down as its president in 1963.

He served two terms as the mayor of Denver, from 1947 to 1955. He was president of the American Municipal Association in 1949 and 1950, and in 1950 was chairman of the Attorney General's Conference on Organized Crime.

He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

James Quigg Newton Jr. was born in Denver and received a bachelor's degree and a law degree from Yale.

He is survived by his wife, the former Virginia Shafroth, whom he married in 1942; four daughters, Virginia Newton of Boulder, Colo., Nan Newton Grusin of Santa Fe, N.M., Nelle Grainger of Taos, N.M., and Abby Newton of Manhattan; and eight grandchildren.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]