Carl A. Hanssen ’51

Carl died Jan. 24, 1999, from congestive heart failure, complicated by diabetes and double pneumonia. In his 71 years he lived a life filled with variety. After Princeton (where he majored in English and was a member of Campus Club and Theatre Intime) he was an actor, ad man, and liaison officer with the Atomic Energy Commission on Eniwetok Island in Micronesia. In 1958 he began a career in medicine; he attended NYU (premed), George Washington Medical School (MD), did postdoctoral work at UCLA's Neuro Psychiatric Institute, and received his master's of social psychiatry and MFA from UCLA in 1971.

Carl worked tirelessly for better care for institutionalized mental patients in California. He developed the Crisis Evaluation Unit, a team of mental health professionals specially trained in handling patients in their first 48 hours of admittance. He died while on staff at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, Calif., developing a program to decrease the physical violence between patient and health provider.

Carl had been amicably divorced. He greatly enjoyed upgrading his computer, acquiring electronic gadgets, and his condominiums in Palm Springs and L.A. The class honors a man with such disparate talents and causes.

The Class of 1951