| James
Rust
|
James Rust served as the first
ombudsman at
Michigan State University from 1967 to 1974. He was the nation's second
university ombudsman, following by one year the appointment of an
ombudsman
at East Montana State University. His tenure spanned the tumultuous
period
of campus unrest connected to the U.S. involvement in the war in Viet
Nam.
As the first MSU ombudsman, Professor Rust established the procedures for reviewing primarily student problems involving both academic and non-academic issues. His charge was included in Article 8 of the seminal Academic Freedom Report of MSU, which called for establishing the Office of the Ombudsman. The AFR was approved by the MSU Board of Trustees on March 16, 1967. Professor Rust came to the position after serving for five years as assistant dean of the College of Arts and Letters. He joined the faculty of the Department of English in 1947, after teaching at Grinnell College, Indiana University and the University of Missouri. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree at Indiana University and the doctorate at Yale University. Professor Rust retired in 1974. |
| Carolyn
Stieber
|
Carolyn Stieber's
tenure
as University Ombudsman extended to 17 years, from 1974 to 1991.
Pointing
to the independence of the office, as prescribed by the Academic
Freedom
Report, she said none of the four university presidents who paralleled
her years in office ever interfered with her work.
She joined the Political Science Department in 1957, teaching courses in state and local politics. She earned an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Chicago and a master's degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. Like her predecessor, James Rust, she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Professor Stieber was named "Spartan of the Year" in 1987 by The State News, the campus daily newspaper. She also served as president of the University and College Ombuds Association for two years. She retired in 1991 and lives in East Lansing with her husband, Jack, a professor emeritus at MSU. |
| Joy Curtis
|
The third university ombudsman, Joy
Curtis,
came to the position from the College of Nursing in 1991 and served
until
1998.
She joined the faculty of the MSU College of Nursing in 1966 and served as director of student affairs for 14 years before being appointed university ombudsman. She has published and lectured extensively about ethics in nursing and co-authored three editions of Ethics in Nursing. She wrote or co-authored more than 30 articles for various professional journals and bulletins and presented her work at numerous conferences and workshops in the United States and abroad. She also edited a journal and co-directed a national Endowment for the Humanities summer session Professor Curtis established Nursing in Great Britain in 1985 in conjunction with the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom and the MSU Office of Study Abroad and taught the summer course in London eight times. She also established an educational exchange program with faculty and students from the Nightingale School in London. Professor Curtis earned a diploma in nursing from Iowa Methodist Hospital School of Nursing, a B.A. in psychology from the University of Iowa and a M.A. in Student Personnel Work in Higher Education, also at the University of Iowa. She was a staff nurse at several hospitals in Iowa and Kansas from 1956 to 1966. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Beta Delta and Sigma Theta Tau honor societies. She received the MSU Woman Achiever Award in 1985 and the 1996 James B. Hamilton Award from the Office of Programs for Handicapper Students. She retired July 1, 1999. She lives in East Lansing with her husband, Bruce, professor emeritus at MSU. |
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