Dr. Richard S. Kurz is Dean of the School of Public Health as the University of North Texas and is professor of health management and policy. He formerly serviced as Dean of the Saint Louis University School of Public Health from 1993 through 2001and as Chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy at Saint Louis University as well as in other administrative roles. He received his baccalaureate degree in sociology from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia (1967) and his doctoral degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1976). In 1991, he served as Chairman of the Board of the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA), the international consortium of accredited health administration programs, and on the Executive Committee of the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) from 1996 to 2001. For six years, he was the Editor of The Journal of Healthcare Management, the international journal published by the Foundation of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). He is currently a Commissioner for the Commission on Accreditation for Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). He served for five years as Co-Chair of the Missouri Council for the Accreditation of Local Health Agencies and is currently a member of the Public Health Accreditation Council of Texas. Dr. Kurz has published and presented in the areas of health services organization and management, especially on the topics of leadership, access to care, and quality improvement. He was a co-investigator for the St. Louis site of the CDC funded, national project Controlling Asthma in American Cities. He has served on advisory boards and task forces nationally for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Veterans Administration, and the Institute of Medicine as well as for the Missouri Department of Health and the Texas Department of State Health Services. While in St. Louis, he was active locally in several civic organizations concerned with children’s health, including service as Chair of Vision for Children at Risk, a multi-county coalition of organizations serving children; as President of the St. Louis City Board of Health; as Chair of the Board of the St. Louis Regional Asthma Consortium, and a Board member of the St. Louis Material, Child, and Family Health Coalition. In Fort Worth, he is a member of the Health Tarrant County Coalition and the Hispanic Health Coalition.

Education
PhD- University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill