[ATTW-L] ***SPAM*** Tribute to JC Mathes

[Ann Blakeslee]

Dear ATTW Members,


We are writing to share with you news of the passing of John C. Mathes,
known to everyone as JC, who died on June 5, 2021, at the age of 90. JC was
an ATTW Fellow, elected in 1992. His career was spent in the College of
Engineering at the University of Michigan, first in the Department of
Humanities and then in the Program in Technical Communication. He is best
known as co-author with Dwight W. Stevenson of Designing Technical Reports:
Writing for Audiences in Organizations, a book that helped transform the
teaching of writing to engineering and other technical students.

JC and Dwight organized and hosted a summer conference on Teaching
Technical and Professional Writing for several years, starting in 1975.
This conference was formative in the development of many of the teachers in
the expansion wave of technical communication courses and programs in the
late 1970s and 1980s.

In addition, it was JC who brought to the attention of technical writing
instructors the nuclear reactor accident at Three Mile Island as a teaching
example, based on documentation revealed by the Presidential Commission
that investigated the accident. JC's analysis of a series of internal memos
demonstrated that the accident resulted, in part, from “inefficient
management communication procedures [that] impeded timely decision-making.”

A full obituary is available here:
https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/annarbor/name/john-mathes-obituary?pid=198974681


And attached is the full tribute with remembrances from several ATTW
Fellows who had the opportunity to know and work with JC. Please feel free
to share this tribute with others who may have known and/or admired JC and
his many contributions to our field.

All the best,
Ann Blakeslee and Carolyn Miller, ATTW Fellows

Ann M. Blakeslee, Ph.D. (she/hers)
Professor of English
Director of Campus & Community Writing
Co-Founder of YpsiWrites
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
ablakesle at emich.edu
(734)502-1270
www.ypsiwrites.com
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