<div dir="auto">Thanks for posting. I knew Dwight, as well. I used Ulman and Gould as a TA at UMass, where John Mitchell was my mentor. But I did an independent study with another professor who recommended Designing Technical Reports, and I incorporated those ideas into my courses, too. I believe Dwight was John Brockmann’s thesis advisor. Your post was a “trip back in time.” Best wishes, Charles. <br clear="all"><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">
<font size="2"><div>Charles H. Sides, PhD<br>
Internship Director and Professor<br>
Department of Communications Media<br>
Fitchburg State University<br>Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Technical Writing & Communication</div></font>
</div></div></div></div><div><br></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Apr 5, 2025 at 1:07 PM Carolyn Miller <<a href="mailto:miller.carolyn.rae@gmail.com">miller.carolyn.rae@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="line-break:after-white-space">I have just learned of the death of Dwight Stevenson last month, at age 91. Most of you will not remember him, but for many of us old-timers in ATTW, he, along with his collaborator JC Mathes at the Department of Humanities in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan, was central to the formation of technical communication as a teaching and research enterprise in the 1970s. Dwight was named an ATTW Fellow in 1987. <div><br></div><div>I attended the first summer conference that Dwight and JC organized at Michigan, in 1975, and it illuminated in a whole new way what I was then trying to learn how to teach. They based the conference in large part on an early draft of their textbook, which was published in 1976 as <i>Designing Technical Reports: Writing for Audiences in Organizations</i> (Bobbs-Merrill). JC and Dwight developed a teaching paradigm for technical writing that I believe was the first not to be based on the current-traditionalism of composition textbooks, and it shaped my teaching for years afterwards. And incidentally, I remember that Dwight was the first person I’d ever encountered who was careful to avoid the generic masculine pronoun. </div><div><br></div><div>A link to the obituary is below. </div><div><br></div><div>Carolyn Miller</div><div><br></div><div><div style="display:block"><div style="display:inline-block" role="link"><a style="border-radius:10px;font-family:-apple-system,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;display:block;width:300px;overflow:hidden;text-decoration:none" rel="nofollow" href="https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/annarbor/name/dwight-stevenson-obituary?id=57990057" dir="ltr" role="button" width="300" target="_blank"><table style="table-layout:fixed;border-collapse:collapse;width:300px;background-color:#e5e6e9;font-family:-apple-system,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="300"><tbody><tr><td align="center"><img src="http://748F87AF-426E-41CF-8BFD-18E8DF0A42ED" style="width:300px;height:250px" width="300" height="250"></td></tr><tr><td><table bgcolor="#E5E6E9" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="300" style="font-family:-apple-system,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;table-layout:fixed;background-color:rgba(229,230,233,1)"><tbody><tr><td style="padding:8px 0px 8px 0px"><div style="max-width:100%;margin:0px 16px 0px 16px;overflow:hidden"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:500;font-size:12px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/annarbor/name/dwight-stevenson-obituary?id=57990057" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><font color="#272727" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.847059)">Dwight Stevenson Obituary (10/07/1933 - 03/10/2025) - Ann Arbor, MI - Ann Arbor News</font></a></div><div style="word-wrap:break-word;font-weight:400;font-size:11px;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;text-align:left"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/annarbor/name/dwight-stevenson-obituary?id=57990057" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><font color="#808080" style="color:rgba(0,0,0,0.498039)">obits.mlive.com</font></a></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div></div></div></div><div style="line-break:after-white-space"><div></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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