Erling Johansen; improved dental research, education at Tufts

By mentoring students, Dr. Erling Johansen got them involved in research at Tufts dental school, a colleague said. (MARK MORELLI)

Fifty years after he entered the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine as a Norwegian immigrant, his English so rudimentary that some lectures were barely comprehensible, Dr. Erling Johansen retired as the school's longest-serving dean.

"When I graduated from this school in 1949, I didn't believe in my wildest dreams that I'd ever come back as dean," Dr. Johansen told Tufts Journal, a university publication, when he stepped down in 1995.

That improbable journey began when he was one of 22 Norwegian students Tufts invited to attend the dental school at the conclusion of World War II. Dr. Johansen, who conducted significant research before he was appointed dean, died of complications of prostate cancer Feb. 29 during an extended visit to Overhalla, Norway, where he was born. He was 84 and had lived in Needham.

"He had a vision of elevating academic standards and integrating research back into our mission," said Dr. Lonnie H. Norris, who succeeded Dr. Johansen as dean. "He also made it possible through his mentoring of younger people to get them involved in research efforts."

Before becoming dean at the beginning of 1979, Dr. Johansen taught for 24 years at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry, where he completed a doctorate in pathology in 1955. His research at the college led to development of a synthetic saliva solution that can be used by cancer patients whose salivary glands are compromised during chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

"I've had only two jobs in my career," he once told the Tufts publication, speaking of his long tenure at Rochester and Tufts. "I don't hop around. I believe in simplicity."

Nevertheless, one of his first projects at Tufts was a complex plan to increase the dental school's curriculum from three to four years, thus allowing students to engage in more research en route to their degrees.

"He thought it was extremely important to have research embedded into the educational process," Norris said.

A student research award for a graduating senior was named for Dr. Johansen, who also lent his name to the first endowed professorship in the dental school's history.

"It keeps his legacy alive and stimulates others to get involved in research," Norris said of the Erling Johansen chair in dental research.

In addition, because Dr. Johansen and his wife devoted so much time to students and their activities, Tufts alumni and faculty created the Dr. Erling and Inger Johansen Student Aid Fund to award scholarships that assist top students in need of financial help.

In the early 1940s, Dr. Johansen took a job teaching high school in Norway during the Nazi occupation of his homeland. After World War II ended, he traveled to the United States with other students for the education he had wanted to pursue, before those hopes were temporarily dashed when Norway's universities were closed during the war.

"We had come for one thing, to study dental medicine," he told the Boston Herald in 1986 of his arrival at Tufts.

That wasn't easy, however, though he had studied English for five years in Norway. During his first class with Dr. Anna Quincy Churchill, a well-known professor, "I listened to her histology lecture but understood nothing," he told the Herald. "These were difficult times for all of us, and we wondered what would happen."

Graduating from Tufts in 1949, he went to the University of Rochester for additional studies. While juggling classes, research, and teaching undergraduates, he took time in 1952 to marry Inger Nordback, who was from a community not far from where Dr. Johansen grew up.

"My dad got a day off from work on July Fourth," said their son Erling T. Johansen, who lives in Anchorage and Barrow, Alaska. "So they drove to Niagara Falls and got married."

Upon receiving his doctorate in 1955, Dr. Johansen began his full-time career as a teacher and researcher. He became chairman of the department of dentistry and dental research at the University of Rochester, where he was the Margaret and Cy Welcher professor of dental research. That devotion to research attracted the attention of the Tufts officials, who named him dean of the School of Dental Medicine.

"My dad was always a strong supporter of education," his son said. "He said, 'Remember, son, education is the poor man's emancipation.' He lived that, and if someone wanted to study, he would do everything to facilitate that."

When he was not in a classroom or a laboratory, Dr. Johansen's preferred milieu was a lake, river, or coastline. He fished in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, along the shores of Alaska, and in the Namsen River, which courses through the valley near his birthplace.

Although he returned regularly to his homeland and supported Scandinavian organizations in the Boston area, Dr. Johansen never regretted the life-changing journey he made to the United States more than 60 years ago.

"Norway is a beautiful country, and I go there whenever I can, but I am an American," he told the Herald in 1986. "If the circumstances were different in 1945, I probably would be in Norway today. But instead, I am here, a citizen of the United States of America and proud of it."

In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Johansen leaves two other sons, Erik of Dulwich Hill, Australia, and Steven of Nordli, Norway; two sisters, Laila Voie of Namsos, Norway, and Randi Jakobsen of Vesteraas, Sweden; two grandsons; and a granddaughter.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. on Sept. 26 in Merritt Auditorium at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine.