Harry Specht; Dean of UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare

Harry Specht, 65, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare for the past 18 years. Specht was recognized nationally as an authority on community organization and social planning, and the 1973 book he co-wrote, “Community Organizing,” remains a standard text in the field. The New York native studied New Deal social programs as they happened during and after the Depression. He dedicated himself to teaching social workers to serve the poor, writing a dozen books and 50 articles and lecturing widely. His most recent book was “Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Abandoned Its Mission,” published in 1993. Specht earned his degrees at the City College of New York, Western Reserve University and Brandeis University. He taught at San Francisco State before going to Berkeley in 1967. On Sunday in Berkeley of throat cancer.