Jean Danielson, professor at Newcomb and Tulane, dies at 77 07-09-2010 Times Picayune Submitted by N.O.V.A. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Jean Danielson, a professor and mentor who had a knack for spotting and nurturing academic talent during 39 years at Newcomb College and Tulane University, died Monday at Canon Hospice of complications of thyroid cancer. She was 77. As an associate professor of political science and, later, director of Tulane's honors program, Dr. Danielson made a point of being accessible to students whenever they sought her out. "Very few of us are willing to or have the complete commitment to students that Jean had," said Tom Luongo, the honors program's director. "Once she was engaged by a student, she was thoroughly engaged. She listened. She loved to talk to them. She was endlessly patient. ... There are people who come along occasionally who can play that kind of role, but they are few and far between." Dr. Danielson set high standards for students and demanded a lot from them. "Some people thought she was like a drill sergeant, but she was a soft touch," said James Kilroy, a former Tulane provost and dean of its College of Arts and Sciences. The time Dr. Danielson spent with students, especially those whom she was grooming to compete for prestigious scholarships for postgraduate study, paid off. During her tenure, Luongo said, Tulane students won a Rhodes scholarship, 11 Marshall scholarships, seven Truman scholarships and 22 Goldwater scholarships. Dr. Danielson, who acquired the nickname "Dean Jean," kept counseling students even after her retirement in 2004 until ill health forced her to stop. Business cards printed up for her bore a made-up title: adviser at large. "It quite suited her," Luongo said. "If she were still here, we would love to have her playing that role because none of us could do what Jean could do." Her students appreciated the attention, said Joan Bennett, a former Tulane biology professor who is an associate vice president of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. "She was always ready for a discussion, an argument or theories, and she always listened," said Nancy Marsiglia, a civic leader who, as a political-science major in the early 1970s, took three courses with Dr. Danielson. "I thought the world of her." With her bowl haircut, deep voice, resonant laugh and ever-present More Red cigarette, Dr. Danielson cut a distinctive figure on the Uptown campus. Dr. Danielson, a Chicago native, came to Tulane in 1965 after earning bachelor's and master's degrees at Southern Illinois University and a doctorate at the University of Kansas. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in political science at Kansas, and she was the first female member of Newcomb's political-science faculty. "I had a big mouth," Dr. Danielson said in a 2004 interview with the New Wave, a Tulane publication. "I was never afraid to articulate my ideas, so I was something different." In 1974, she organized Newcomb's first women's studies colloquium. "It was adventurous and out there," Bennett said. "She came into the first class and said, 'We're going to give the broad picture.' Everybody got it. Then she'd take a puff and tell another line, and she'd have everybody with her." Dr. Danielson received awards recognizing her teaching prowess, and she was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership society. "The university provided her a family environment, and the students were her kids," history professor George Bernstein said. "She always treated them like adults. If you show that you respect them and care for them, they'll respond, and there was nobody in the world better at that than Jean." Survivors include a brother, John Danielson of Chattanooga, Tenn.; and three nieces, Arlyn Danielson Schlosberg of Alexandria, Va., Karyn Danielson of Hampshire, Ill., and Lauryn Kessler of Chicago. No funeral is planned.