Dean Merv Huston and a graduate student discuss a research project involving the use of a Warburg apparatus for measuring tissue respiration.
As the faculty's first official dean, Dr. Merv Huston, is the person most remembered for bringing the faculty into the modern era. According to former professor Len Wiebe, Huston was a man of many talents.
"I would sum Merv up as a renaissance man," says Wiebe, a former faculty member from 1969-2005. "He was a talent in many fields and areas both professional and personally. His accomplishments as dean are on record - building the department and keeping it together with a skeleton staff. Then in the mid-60s, he expanded it with key recruits and built it to be one of the strongest pharmacy faculties in Canada in both undergraduate teaching and research."
Wiebe notes that while Huston took his title as dean seriously, he had several interests outside pharmacy and was also an accomplished writer, musician, amateur boxer, card player and public speaker among other things.
Huston's 23 years as dean was preceded by nine years as the director of the School of Pharmacy before it officially became a faculty.
Wiebe met Huston in 1966 when he was recruited as a sessional instructor in Saskatchewan. Three years later, after Wiebe had completed his doctoral research in Australia, Huston convinced Wiebe to come to Edmonton to work with him. "My first day here, I came up from Calgary on the bus," says Wiebe. "Merv stayed back in the office until 6:30 p.m to wait for me to arrive and even took me over to lodging where I was to stay. He was definitely a hands-on dean - that's the kind of guy he was."
Huston did a lot of good work as dean and maintained a strong relationship with the pharmacy association which was the professional association at that time. His other accomplishments were significant. He was a scientist by trade but he also built a strong research department. Huston was born in 1912 and his involvement in the profession was a family matter - he apprenticed in his father's drugstore in Ashcroft, B.C.
He had a great aptitude for science. Huston earned the BSc(Pharm) degree from the University of Alberta in 1937 and his MSc four years later. He actually began lecturing in the University of Alberta's School of Pharmacy while he was still completing his masters' degree. He then joined the staff of the School of Pharmacy and returned to it after earning his PhD from the University of Washington in 1943.
After the resignation of A.W. Matthews in 1946, he was named acting director of the School, an appointment which was confirmed on a continuing basis in 1948. A former president of CPhA (1968-69), Huston advocated for, and then edited, a scientific section in CPJ. He has served in various capacities with national and international pharmacy organizations, including CFAP, ADPC, AFPC and FIP. The University of Alberta conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree (DSc) on him in 1988 in recognition of his contributions to the University and to the community at large. Huston was known for setting a professional environment in the faculty - male students had to wear dress shirts and ties to class and always wore lab coats in the dispensing labs. This was to instill a sense of professionalism in students early on in their career.
He was very serious about students receiving an education - he would often walk through dispensing labs making a comment or two on the student's work, then leaving the room. But, as Wiebe noted, Huston had a lighter side to his personality. He was an accomplished musician who played with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the local opera company for several years. "He was a bassoon player and was a member of other jazz and dance bands in Edmonton," says Wiebe. "He was also pretty handy on the keyboard and other wind instruments."
His nickname, Happy Huston, came from a dance band he created - Happy Huston and his Merry Men. While on a two-year hiatus between the completion of his pharmacy degree, he was a full-time musician, mostly playing with Chet Lambertson's orchestra. Lambertson was the composer of the U of A Cheer Song.
Huston was known as a great speaker - in fact, over his career, he spoke formally at more than 500 professional associations, conventions and other clubs across North America. "He was very good at it because like everything, he went in prepared," says Wiebe.
He was prolific at writing novels and he won a Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 1982 for the novel, Gophers Don't Pay Taxes. Some of his smaller stories were also published in professional journals and others in student newspapers. "He wrote a novel called Julius Seizure where he substituted medical words for non-medical words," says Wiebe. "He also wrote musicals and textbooks including a pharmaceutical arithmetic textbook."
Few people remember that he was also an amateur boxer. Wiebe recalls a story that Huston told him happened when Huston took his wife to his hometown, Ashcroft BC. "There was a damsel in distress nearby, so Huston walked over and punched out the man who was harassing the woman," said Wiebe. "That made an impression on his wife. He wasn't a big man either - he was small in stature."
"He had a big interest in other things and he not only dabbled in them, he did well at them," says Wiebe. "He was a great card player - he won his fair share of poker games. At the time, it was a popular activity and he led an informal poker club in the faculty."
Huston's legacy as dean of the faculty is indisputable but he will be remembered by those who knew him well as a well-rounded person who lived a full life both inside and outside the classroom.