Paul Skinner: UA professor ranged from audiology to spirituality

As head of the university's department of speech and hearing sciences, he transformed the program from an amalgamation of speech therapy, theater arts and radio and television broadcast classes into one of the nation's top speech, language and hearing programs.

As a student of human behavior, Skinner shifted focus in the second half of his career and joined the UA department of family and community medicine, where he researched the link between communication and spirituality, self-healing, the mind-body connection and the nature of consciousness.

As a professor emeritus, Skinner continued to conduct research in the field until his death Nov. 2 from pneumonia. He was 76.

Skinner was born in a small Pennsylvania town. His mother was a teacher, and his father, who ran a trucking company, was a county commissioner.

Skinner was athletic, playing football and basketball in high school, but, said his wife, Valerie, "he has had a lifelong love of Albert Einstein and science."

As proof, the library in the couple's Tucson home is packed with books on science and research. Skinner, a father of one, even penned a dozen books of his own.

Skinner earned a Ph.D from Wayne State University in Detroit and worked as an audiologist before continuing his post-doctoral education at Cambridge University in England.

In the late 1960s and early '70s, as head of the UA speech and hearing department, Skinner won grants from top research institutions, which gave him the means to develop a computer that electronically recorded the brain's reaction to sounds. The device allowed him and his colleagues to detect hearing impairment in infants and older children.

"He certainly was on the front edge of technology in the 1970s," said professor emeritus Ted Glattke, who worked with Skinner in the UA department. "I think he enjoyed the science. He clearly enjoyed helping people and communicating his results to others."

During his tenure in the department, Skinner helped established a research and training center for American Indian students earning their master's degrees in speech pathology and audiology. The hope was that they'd return to their hometowns after graduation to provide their much-needed services at reservation clinics, said a former colleague, speech pathologist Daniel R. Boone.

It was his work with these students, colleagues said, that sparked Skinner's interest in spirituality and its connection to healing. He changed his focus to lifestyle, mind-body and behavioral health and complementary medicine and worked for 20 years in the department of family and community medicine.

"So much of what we do in the area of changing how someone talks, so much of voicing, so much of talking, comes from the inner self. The psychology and focus on the mind has a great impact on how somebody sounds, and he recognized that," Boone said of Skinner. "He came out of the Native American research training center and did more a kind of spiritual counseling."

While working in the department of family and community medicine, Skinner developed a research model for treating substance abuse holistically, said Dr. Tamsen Bassford, the department head.

"Dr. Skinner was especially interested in traditional medicine and spirituality as they impacted health," she said. "He helped you figure out how to be empowered in your life."

The senior vice president of Canyon Ranch, Dr. Tony Vuturo, headed the department of family and community medicine when Skinner joined the team in the 1980s.

"Paul was a very keen observer of mankind. He was attracted to how the spiritual dimensions of a person's life began to influence what they hear and how they behave," Vuturo said. "A whole new dimension begins when people really look beyond themselves. The nature of Paul's study was . . . of what people did and how they did it and what happens to them as a result. In his own way, he was terribly brilliant, ahead of his time."

LIFE STORIES

This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting - and sometimes extraordinary - lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at: go.azstarnet.com/lifestories