Van den Noort’s Outgoing Reception on Warm Side

One of the honoree’s friends told the audience that Dr. Stanley van den Noort is sometimes described as a “tough street brawler.”

Looking at van den Noort, who sat nearby, the speaker, Dr. Paul Alloy, added: “In my own dealings with him, I can say that’s how he is.”

Van den Noort smiled and laughed, as did the rest of the outdoor audience of about 100 persons.

‘I’m Deeply Touched’

But when van den Noort, a few minutes later, rose to speak at the microphone, there was no street-brawling rejoinder--even in jest. Instead, the gruff-voiced dean of the UC Irvine College of Medicine repeatedly said, “I’m deeply touched.”

The scene Friday afternoon was a reception for van den Noort, who steps down Sunday as medical college dean, a position he has held for the past 12 years. They have been years of growth, and occasional controversy, and van den Noort’s friends Friday privately said that it was undoubtedly the “Big Controversy” that kept van den Noort from getting another term as dean.

‘Big Controversy’

The “Big Controversy,” his friends noted, was van den Noort’s passionate but unsuccessful fight to get an on-campus hospital at UC Irvine. “Ultimately, he ran into politics and powerful people who didn’t want that,” said a friend, who asked not to be identified.

On-the-record, however, no one was talking about the on-campus, off-campus hospital fight. Instead, the reception on the lawn in front of the medical college classrooms at UC Irvine focused on nostalgia, good wishes and gentle humor.

The latter included a plane that flew over the campus scene dragging an aerial sign reading, “Dean van den Noort.” As the plane buzzed overhead, a voice over the loudspeaker on the ground gave a parody of the old Superman radio serials.

Said the voice: “Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s van den Noort.”

‘You’re a Champ’

Alloy, of Whittier, is president of the Associated Alumni of the UCI Medical College. He said that it took a Superman, of sorts, to lead the medical college during the past 12 years.

“There’s no question but that you’re a champ,” Alloy said to van den Noort. But Alloy, jokingly, said he had a word of belated political-boxing advice to van den Noort: “Come out of the corner with your guard up.”

Ed Buster, a Santa Ana businessman and chairman of the medical college’s board of trustees, told the audience that van den Noort was “a great team player” whose “greatest concern . . . is this medical school.”

Supported the Dean

Earlier, in an interview, Buster said van den Noort “conducted himself in a very valuable way in getting this medical campus going from one that was ranked very low to one that is now ranked 17th in the United States . . . . My official position was in support of his being retained (for another term) as dean.” Buster, however, noted that the issue is now moot, since UCI Chancellor Jack Peltason in January decided not to reappoint van den Noort to another term.

Van den Noort stays on the medical college faculty as a professor of neurology. His colleagues told him that the growth and increased national stature of the medical college was van den Noort’s ultimate monument. Nonetheless, they said they were adding their own memorials: a park-like, tree-shaded area in front of the medical college has been named “Van Den Noort Arbor,” and a portrait of the dean, to hang in a classroom building, also was unveiled.

The portrait shows van den Noort seated. He has a benign, but quizzical, look on his face. Buster joked to the audience that the portrait doesn’t portray van den Noort “like the (street brawler) description I’ve heard of you.”

Not About to Retire

Van den Noort, in a brief interview, made it clear, however, that the old fighter of yore is not about to retire.

“I’m still going to work to get the county to provide more medical care for the indigent,” he said. “And my second concern is making sure that the clinical facilities for the Irvine campus come as they’re supposed to.”

Does this mean that van den Noort will still be speaking out?.

His clear blue eyes glaring under his shock of curly gray hair, the dean had a three-word affirmation: “You’re damned right.”