IN MEMORIAM
JEAN WARD MAY 18, 1930-JAN. 17, 2020 A PERSONAL REMEMBRANCE BY KATHLEEN A. HANSEN JEAN WARD COULD SEE AROUND CORNERS and anticipate
what was coming before most people even knew where the corners were. I know this because I was lucky enough to have her as my cherished mentor, colleague, co-author, fellow bird-lover and friend. Jean passed away in her sleep of natural causes on Jan. 17, 2020. She was 89. Jean earned a B.A. from the School of Journalism and was a staff writer at the Minnesota Daily, where she met her future husband. Jean and Jim were at an afterhours party at the Daily and the two crossed paths as the police were coming in the front door and they were leaving out the back. After a seven-year stint as a staff writer at the Minneapolis Tribune, Jean returned to the U where she completed an M.A. in Mass Communication and a Ph.D. in American Studies in 1967. Jean joined the journalism faculty in 1970 and quickly established herself as an innovative and forward-thinking academic. She taught in one of the university’s early interdisciplinary efforts, the Communication Program, along with her appointment in the School. With Donald Gillmor, she led the drive to overhaul the School’s undergraduate curriculum in the late 1970s in the face of the changing media landscape. That included the idea that there should be a new course in the School that addressed the centrality of the information gathering process in the work of communicators. I was hired in 1981 to help develop a course required for all journalism majors: Information for Mass Communication. I recall walking across campus from one location to another with Jean during my on-campus interview. While I don’t remember what we talked about, I do remember walking fast. Jean was a power-walker, attacking the sidewalk like she did everything else: with total determination.
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MURPHY REPORTER ❙ Summer 2020
Much of what I know about how to be a journalism professor I learned from Jean. We collaborated on curriculum development, book projects and articles, and some of the first computer-assisted instruction exercises used at the University. Jean was an important role model for how to successfully navigate University bureaucracy for all junior faculty, but especially as more women came on board. She also was a strong proponent of the philosophy that excellent teaching and service were as important as excellent research in the academy.
