The death of William Alvin Hunt on January 3, 1986 marked the loss of one of the important contributors to the science and profession of clinical psychology. The rapid expansion of our profession since the end of World War Two overlaps with the history of the Journal of Clinical Psychology, which, as one of the members of his 1945 charter Editorial Board, Hunt helped his good friend, Frederick C. Thorne, launch as a needed voice to help in that expansion. The friendship between Hunt and Thorne continued until the latter's death in 1978, with Hunt continuing on the Editorial Board of the Journal until his death at age 82.
Biographic material on Hunt, including citation of his service on many national, government and professional advisory boards, as well as his numerous awards, will not be included here because such personal and professional information is readily available in the book that contains his Thomas William Salmon Lectures (Hunt, 1956), in his autobiography (Hunt, 1972), and in the full list of his publications published by the American Psychological Association (1980) when Hunt received the 1979 Annual APA Distinguished Professional Contribution to Public Service Award. Instead, the focus here will be a bit more personal; specifically, on Hunt the man who role modeled the scientist-clinician for the graduate students he taught both at Northwestern University from 1945 until his retirement in 1967 and during his post-retirement, emeritus faculty appointment at Loyola University of Chicago.
Hunt received his Ph.D. in psychology in 1931 from Harvard University, where his graduate student peers included B. F. Skinner, Hadley Cantril, John Volkmann, and Muzafer Sherif. Although Hunt became during the 1930s one of our country's earliest scientist-clinicians and 40 years later would contribute as one of the architects of today's health psychology, he began his career of graduate studies in a curriculum that included a meld of Titchener's Structuralism and Harvard's Functionalism. As a graduate student and throughout his life, Hunt was an individual with a Phi Beta Kappa intellect, the love of life of a Navy "Salt," and the manner of a politician-statesperson for psychology who easily earned the respect of both friend and adversary. He was a per-