Retired MSU Professor Mary Gardner, who died Thursday at the age of 84 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease, was a woman of firsts.
She was the first woman to earn a doctorate in communication at the University of Minnesota, the first woman to earn tenure as an MSU journalism professor, and the first woman to be elected president of the Association of Journalism and Mass Communications.
In the mid-'80s, Gardner helped establish MSU's Hispanics in Journalism program, the first of its kind in the country, with a $100,000 grant from the Gannett Foundation. She was inducted into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 1998 and the National Association of Hispanics in Journalism Hall of Fame in 2003.
Before coming to MSU in 1966, Gardner worked at El Norte, a newspaper in Monterrey, Mexico, where she worked toward fair wages for her staff and fought against censorship.
Journalism Professor Fred Fico, who worked with Gardner since 1982, remembers Gardner as the woman who set the standards for the School of Journalism.
"This is a tough place," he said. "And she set the tone and the color for the whole school as a 'We give a damn' institution."
Her students remember her as tough but fair and caring, he said.
"She believed so much in journalism. She had a tremendous sense of its ethical role," Fico said. "She just stood for the sanctity of journalism; she saw it as a communication that was for the public good."
Gardner is the inspiration for the Mary Gardner Scholars, a program that honors journalism students who excel inside and outside the classroom. The scholars, who must have had at least one paid internship, attend dinners with visiting speakers and work to honor Gardner's memory. Every year, the scholar with the highest grade-point average is awarded $1,000 scholarship.
Journalism senior Jessica Hulett, who has been a Scholar since she was a sophomore, said though she didn't have the opportunity to meet Gardner, she's honored to be part of her tradition.
"We've had access to some of the prestigious people who have been on campus and at the (journalism) school," she said.
A memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 6 in the MSU Alumni Chapel.
