Contact: Jane Briggs-Bunting, School of Journalism, (248) 330-9626 or (517) 355-1520; Steve Lacy, School of Journalism, (517) 332-1411; or Russ White, University Relations, (517) 432-0923, whiterus@msu.edu

1/22/2004

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Legendary Michigan State University professor Mary Gardner left her mark on the many journalism students who first feared her, then came to love her. She was anything but a soft touch.

Gardner, 84, died today after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

With her Marine Corps background, she demanded accuracy, honesty and a lot of work in basic reporting classes that were considered boot camp by many of those alumni when they were undergraduate students.

Students feared her, complained about her “unreasonable” expectations, yet often came to revere her as they embarked on their professional careers.

“She was uncompromising and exacting,” said MSU journalism professor Fred Fico. “Journalism wasn’t a job or a profession. It was a sacred mission, and that’s what she communicated to her students, to her faculty colleagues, and to working reporters and editors.”

A memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 6, at the MSU Alumni Memorial Chapel. A private burial service will be held in Kingston, Ohio.

Her demanding classroom style and rigorous grading standard (a misspelled name earned a D, an incorrect fact an F) were the trademarks of her 30 years in journalism education at MSU, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota, where she was the first woman to earn a doctorate in journalism and political science in 1960.

She arrived at MSU in 1966 as an assistant professor and retired in 1991 as a professor emeritus.

For more that 20 years, she spent her summers training reporters at what was then a small, local Mexican newspaper, El Norte. The newspaper was founded by the grandfather of its current president and publisher, Alejandro Junco de la Vega. A former student of Gardner’s at the University of Texas, he turned to her to train his staff in reporting, writing and ethics when he took over the family business.

Her contributions are credited with helping El Norte grow from the number two newspaper in Monterrey, Mexico, to the number one newspaper and newspaper chain in that nation. Junco de la Vega describes Gardner as the godmother of the free press in Mexico.

Her name is synonymous with firsts. She was the first woman to earn tenure and rank as a journalism professor at MSU, and the first woman to be elected president of the Association of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“The word ‘pioneer’ has always been associated with Mary Gardner,” said Stan Soffin, former director of the MSU School of Journalism and now the university’s ombudsman. “As her many honors testify, she dared to tread where few other women had ventured. Countless students willing to endure her high demands will remember her as their dedicated mentor.”

In the mid-1980s, Gardner helped establish the Hispanics in Journalism Program at MSU, the first of its kind in the country.

She was honored with induction into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998 and the National Association of Hispanics in Journalism Hall of Fame in 2003. In 1982, she received the Distinguished Faculty Award at MSU, and the MSU Woman Achievement Award in 1986.

In her honor, the School of Journalism, with a $100,000 gift from Junco de la Vega and the El Norte and Grupo Reforma newspaper chains, created the Mary Gardner Scholars, an honors society for the most outstanding students in journalism.

Gardner was born and raised in Chillicothe, Ohio. She was the youngest of four children and the only daughter of a veterinarian and homemaker. She graduated from StephensCollege in 1938 with an associate’s degree, OSU in 1942, and took classes in creative writing at Evansville Evening College in 1942-43. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University in 1953.

During World War II, she enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1943 and had reached the rank of captain by her 1946 discharge. She remained in the Marine Corps Reserve, retiring at the rank of colonel in 1974.

Gardner is survived by one brother, Porter, of Zoar, Ohio. She was preceded in death by two brothers, Philip D. Gardner and Richard S. Gardner.