Former SIUE mass communications professor and department chairman Bill Ward passed away this morning. He was 85. His son, Jeff, posted the news on Bill’s Facebook page.
Professor Gary Hicks, current chair of the mass communications department, noted Bill Ward’s legendary status among the faculty. Ward was the Great Teacher of the Year Award winner in 1984.
More information will be provided as it becomes available.
Some thoughts on Bill Ward through the years:
Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke, a member of the SIUE Alumni Hall of Fame, on the SIUE Alumni Association website:
When Bill Plaschke stepped into the office of Mass Communications Department Chair Bill Ward in 1977, Plaschke was living out of a Roxana church basement and did not have much money. What he did have, Plaschke said, was “luster.”
“I’ll be the best writer you’ll ever have,” Plaschke said to Ward.
Ward smiled and said, “We’ll see.” Ward, Plaschke said, prepared him for the future and molded him into the reporter he is today.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Paige St. John, also a member of the SIUE Alumni Hall of Fame was honored for investigative journalism. According to the Pulitzer Prize web site, St. John said Ward played a pivotal role in her development at SIUE. She stated the single word answer to the classes and professors that influenced her career is “Ward.”
“There wasn’t a student who came through the program who was not imprinted by Professor Bill Ward, and he continues to inspire many of us to this day,” said St. John. “He assembled a remarkable team of teachers, and every class with them – from photojournalism to constitutional law – was critical to helping me develop as a journalist, to learn to see the world, and inspiring me to reach for the sky.”
In a Mass Communications Department newsletter from 2009, Rick Welle, who was the Edwardsville Fire Chief at that point, said one person who helped develop his communications skills from SIUE was former Mass Communications Department Chairman Bill Ward.
“I think a great deal of that was Bill Ward. He was a tremendous mentor and instructor,” Welle said.
In a Mass Communications Department newsletter from 2010, author Cathey Newhouse, said while at SIUE, mass communications professors Bill Ward and Nora Baker taught her how to write.