Passages

Andrew Goodwin

Dr. Andrew Goodwin, a professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, died from injuries sustained in a fire at his apartment building in Berkeley on September 10, 2013. He was fifty-six.

A respected scholar and teacher, Goodwin had earned his doctorate in cultural studies from the University of Birmingham, England. He served on the editorial board of Popular Music and Society, was a corresponding editor for Media, Culture & Society, and wrote for various publications. He was the author of the well-known book on music television and cultural theory, Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture, published by the University of Minnesota Press. He was known for his special topics courses, such as one on Led Zeppelin, a course that used the band to examine cultural trends.

The chair of the media studies department, Bernadette Barker-Plummer, described the late Dr. Goodwin as someone “always very concerned about students” and as “very brilliant.”

Clifford I. Nass

Dr. Clifford I. Nass, the Thomas M. Storke professor of communication at Stanford and an expert on human–computer interaction, died after a hike on November 2, 2013. He was fifty-five.

A native of New Jersey, he earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at Princeton University. He undertook groundbreaking work on multitasking and most recently was studying the effect of heavy use of digital technology on empathy. He believed that people’s ability to read one another’s faces helps people negotiate conflict in a healthy way. If people are texting and using Facebook instead of engaging in day-to-day interaction, they will begin to lose their ability to deal with challenging situations, he theorized.

Dr. Nass and Byron Reeves, also a professor of communications at Stanford, co-authored The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television and New Media as Real People and Places, which was published in 1996.

Dr. Nass was also the co-author of Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship (2005) and The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us about Human Relationships (2010).

Penn Kimball

Penn Townsend Kimball, a journalist, author, and professor for twenty-seven years at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, died on November 8 at a Chevy Chase, Maryland, nursing home. He was ninety-eight.

Editor in chief of The Princetonian during his days as a Princeton University student, Kimball earned a master’s degree in politics and economics as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He intended to continue his studies in Grenoble, France, but returned to the United States on the last passenger ship to sail before the outbreak of World War ll. He began his career as a writer and editor at U.S. News in Washington, D.C. He joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor and served for four years in the Pacific. Later working as a writer for Time magazine, he married Janet Fraser, a researcher there, in 1947.

Kimball sued the federal government for $10 million after he discovered that he and his wife had been declared national security risks in the 1950s. His book, The File, which became a BBC and later a “Frontline” documentary, profiles his battle with the government. A proud Democrat, Kimball was a political consultant to two Democratic governors, Chester Bowles of Connecticut and Averell Harriman of New York. He also served Connecticut Sen. William Benton, working with him in his denunciation of Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Calder Pickett

Dr. Calder Pickett, a professor of journalism at the University of Kansas for almost four decades, died on October 29, 2013, in Lawrence, Kansas. He was ninety-two.

Born July 26, 1921, in Providence, Utah, Pickett worked as a printing apprentice in Preston, Idaho, before getting his bachelor’s degree from Utah State University in 1944. He became a lifelong member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

He received his master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1948, and his doctorate in American Studies from the University of Minnesota in 1959. After college, he became a professor of journalism at Utah State University, the University of Denver, and the University of Kansas where he taught until retiring in 1988.

In 1962 while he was acting dean, the KU journalism school received the William Randolph Hearst Foundation Award, which he received from President Kennedy in Washington, D.C. In 1969 while at KU he won the Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Award for best journalism research for his book, Ed Howe: Country Town Philosopher. His second book was Anthology of Journalism.

University of Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said of Dr. Pickett:

Calder Pickett was a renowned professor and historian of journalism and a charismatic teacher of several generations of journalists. His research and teaching about the history of journalism helped shape how countless students not only practiced their professions but also how they critically evaluated the world around them.

He was the Clyde M. Reed Distinguished Professor of Journalism and received the Chancellor’s Club Career Teaching Award. He was a radio broadcaster for thirty-two years for Kansas Public Radio and produced more than 1,500 hour-long episodes of “The American Past.” In 1973, the program received the George Foster Peabody Award for “meritorious service to journalism.”

Pickett worked for various newspapers, including the Salt Lake Tribune, Kansas City Star, Kansas City Times, Topeka Capital Journal, and the Lawrence Journal World. Calder was a book review editor for Journalism Quarterly for ten years. He wrote book reviews for The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times.

A member of the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship, he served as chairman, program director, and Sunday school teacher. He participated in various bridge and dinner clubs; served on various boards at KU, and the Lawrence Library board; and volunteered for Audio Reader. He was a season-ticket holder and great fan of the Jayhawks. Calder Pickett had a huge love of movies and had large book and movie handbill collections. He did extensive travel through the United States, Europe, and Australia and took a yearlong sabbatical in England.

He was preceded in death by his wife of sixty-five years, Nola, who died on March 12, 2013. Survivors include his two daughters, Carolyn Zeligman, Overland Park, Kansas, and Kathleen Jenson, Chicago; two grandchildren, Laura Zeligman, Chicago, and Daniel Zeligman, Los Angeles; one brother, Neal Pickett, Salt Lake City, Utah; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Ronald Roat

Author and retired journalism professor Ronald Clair Roat died on Thanksgiving Day 2013 at his Ludington, Michigan, home. He was sixty-seven.

A graduate of Ludington High School, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a master’s degree from Oregon State University. He worked at the Lansing State Journal and the Dayton Daily News. He taught at the University of Southern Indiana from 1986 to 2007. He was an associate professor and coordinator of the print and online journalism sequences.

Roat’s mystery novels included Close Softly the Doors, A Still and Icy Silence, and High Walk, all stories in the Stuart Mallory Mystery Series.

He is survived by his mother; his only daughter, Brittany Evans; and two grandchildren.

Eleanor Wright

Eleanor Wright, whose career in journalism, public relations, and education spanned almost fifty years, died on November 10, 2013. She was ninety.

Wright, who lived in Webster Groves, Missouri, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from Northwestern University. She began her career in the society department of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1945 and worked from 1950 to 1960 as a columnist for the Webster (Missouri) News Times. She joined Barks Publications as associate editor of Electrical Apparatus Service magazine and editor of Unicorn, the Theta Xi fraternity magazine. In 1975, she became editor of the St. Louis County Observer.

Having moved to the Detroit area in 1977, Wright helped found the public relations department at Lawrence Institute of Technology, now Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan. She also was a roving editor for the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers.

Wright joined the Eastern Michigan University English department in 1979 and helped to establish a major in journalism and an interdisciplinary program in public relations, which eventually became a major. She began an internship program through the Detroit Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.