Jeanne Garnett

is honored with a Brick from Carol Wolfe Konek.

Jeanne Garnett, a woman I love and respect, remains a mystery to me. She has a way of turning attention away from herself, focusing her respect and praise on others. She is the most adept administrator I have ever known, in that she makes administration virtually invisible to those who benefit from it. She was a compassionate and demanding elementary school teacher who had become the English Department Administrative Assistant by the time I entered graduate school. She looked after me in a subtle and persistent way, warning me, guiding me, helping me balance family and teaching responsibilities, inviting me to her home for hospitality and friendship when I might have floundered in the crossfire of department politics. She understood, yet never spoke of, the obstacles in the path of myself and other idealistic and naive women.

When I flunked a question on my Master's comprehensive exam (like a fool, writing a creative interpretation rather than a generic answer on a question on the over-reachers in literature, of all things), the Chair of the department was somehow mysteriously persuaded to personally administer and grade an alternative question.

When a returnable loan I needed for enrollment in a Ph.D. program was stalled by bureaucratic red tape, she produced a cashier's check from a mysterious benefactor. Jeanne reluctantly came out of one of her many retirements to fill the role of Administrative Assistant for Project DELTA, funded by the Women's Educational Equity Act. I knew she could keep me and the project on track, giving sound advice, keeping flawless records, meeting program and budget deadlines, and helping us keep our balance and perspective.

With her IBM electric in the trunk of the car, she drove me to Norman for my dissertation defense before a committee so philosophically and politically divided, I was terrified by the prospect of spending two hours in a room with them. After buying me a wonderful shrimp dinner, and sending me to bed early, she sent me to face a committee that argued long and loudly before giving me a qualified pass. It was she who stood over me as I did a major revision over the Fourth of July weekend in our Project DELTA office, commanding me, "Stop whining and pewling and write!"

By the time I received my Ph.D., my marriage was falling apart, and Jeanne and Gerry Hammond drove me to their cabin in Colorado for R-&-R, sat me on a rock, and put a fishing pole in my hand until I started to heal, feeding me balanced meals and sending me to bed early. Finally, I rejoined the world of the living.

Jeanne Garnett, and her friends Geraldine Hammond and PJ Wyatt, were always behind the scenes, forging a path, defending me from adversaries, and removing obstacles. I owe my career at Wichita State University, and much of my insight into the obstacles to women's success to the determined, loyal, compassionate efforts of Jeanne Garnett. With such a woman for a friend and defender, a guardian angel would be redundant. Sometimes skeptical of feminism, she put advancing the potential of women by helping women into feminist practice. It is a pleasure to commemorate her service, her loyalty, her administrative effectiveness and her enduring friendship in the center of the campus, in the Plaza of Heroines.

Submitted by Carol Wolfe Konek

September 4, 1998