Awards

IU Indianapolis Spirit of Philanthropy Award - 1995

About Mary Benedict

After being graduated with a bachelor’s of science in journalism from Butler University in 1945, Mary Benedict worked for the Red Cross in the Pacific for three years. During college, Benedict worked for radio station WIBC, and from 1965 to 1970, she did public relations part time for the Indiana State Teachers Association. In 1953, she earned her M.S. degree in education from Butler.

Between 1950 and 1972, Benedict was a teacher at both Washington and Arlington high schools in Indianapolis, where in 1967 she won National Journalism Teacher of the Year honors bestowed by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund. She also won Indiana’s top teaching award for a journalism educator – the Ella Sengenberger Award presented by the Indiana High School Press Association of Franklin College in 1964.

Benedict served on the IUPUI School of Journalism faculty from 1972-1986, and during her 13 years as director of the High School Journalism Institute (HSJI), more than 6,000 high school students attended. She also taught courses and conducted workshops for future and current teachers of journalism. For several years she coordinated and taught the J200, Writing for Mass Media, course. She was also the primary public relations instructor. She gained respect of her students as a taskmaster, but always got high student evaluations.

As a specialist in the service area, Benedict inaugurated Media Merit-thon, a statewide on-the-spot contest for high school journalism students. She also directed “On-Assignment” days on the IUB campus. These were one-day events that brought high school students and their teachers to campus in order to experience individually tailored educational opportunities in journalism. Hundreds of high school personnel came for these special meetings with Professor Benedict and the colleagues she recruited to meet with them.

Benedict enjoyed a national reputation as a giant in journalism education. Aside from many teaching honors, she also took on leadership roles at the national level. In the early 1980s, she was head of the Secondary Education Division of the Association for Education in Journalism, an organization of university educators. She was also a board member for Quill and Scroll, international honorary society for high school journalists, and was president of both Indianapolis and Bloomington chapters of Women in Communications. The Journalism Education Association, primarily comprised of high school teachers, presented her a Pioneer Award for her long service to that organization.

The late Indiana Gov. Frank O’Bannon named her a Sagamore of the Wabash, and she was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, headquartered at DePauw University in Greencastle.

After her retirement from full-time teaching at IU-Bloomington, Benedict taught part-time on the IUPUI campus and at Ivy Tech. Also, she volunteered as editor of The Garden publications for her church and was active with the Southeast Community Center, Habitat for Humanity, Fresh Start, the Indianapolis Press Club, the Society of Retired Executives and Money Makers Investment Club.