Faculty Council Minutes

December 4, 1990

A motion was introduced to endorse the memorial resolution for Michael J. Brody and was passed with acclamation.

RESOLUTION:  With the death of Michael J. Brody, the University of Iowa loses an irreplaceable role model of the Iowa teacher-scholar. His loss is both professional and personal for everyone who came in contact with him. 

Professor Brody was a teacher and trainer of the first magnitude, commanding both the love and respect of students who worked for and with him. Adept at both specialized research and interdisciplinary conceptualization, Professor Brody was a teacher who developed multileveled talents in his students. He was, as well, a researcher-scholar of international repute. Anyone trying to catch up with him even during his years of leadership in faculty affairs was forced to chase him from Sweden to South America. He died in Australia while serving as the Distinguished International Lecturer at the meeting of the Australian Council for High Blood Pressure Research. Not only was he associate director of Iowa’s Cardiovascular Center, but also director of the Specialized Center for Research in Hypertension... 

While work in the Department of Pharmacology occupied much of his time, he nonetheless had enough energy and commitment to higher education generally to give of himself to faculty governance. Many of us on the east bank of the Iowa River got to know Professor Brody through the Faculty Senate and Faculty Council. He was a determined, impassioned advocate of faculty participation in university decision making. He constantly scrutinized academic and administrative review procedures, helping to rewrite them in the mid-1980’s and taking the lead while President of the Faculty Senate in urging renewable term appointments for collegiate and central administrators... 

Also high on his agenda were questions about how faculty could more actively contribute to university relations. He believed strongly in the importance of having faculty present the university and its missions to students, parents, regents, legislators, the governor, and the citizens of the state. If the faculty is the heart of the university, he reasoned, then it ought to be the face we present to the outside world... 

Inspiring teacher, life-saving researcher-scholar, and committed faculty activist:  Michael J. Brody gave his all to his professions. With his passing, the University of Iowa loses a leader among leaders, our students lose a great teacher and trainer, the state loses a prime educational resource, and the world loses a man leading the assault on cardiovascular disease... May his virtues be inscribed in the memories of all whom he touched.