‘A wonderful ride’

James Ballard, a senior lecturer and former director of the Engineering Communication Center in the McKelvey School of Engineering, retired June 1, 2024, after teaching technical writing to thousands of engineering students over 54 years with the university.

Ballard began his WashU career in 1970 as a doctoral student in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, then joined the Engineering school in 1974 after a conversation with James M. McKelvey Sr., who was dean from 1964-1991. The Engineering school was looking for someone to teach its students writing. Ballard designed a syllabus for an undergraduate course in technical writing — a fairly new term at the time — and got a trial semester.

“I put on a necktie, walked across a quadrangle, and my salary escalated dramatically,” he recalls with his signature dry wit. “Life got much more interesting. I realized how much I’d missed technology and science, and I got to hang around it without doing the math.” 

The trial technical writing course, which is still taught today through the Division of Engineering Education, has helped students think more analytically and write more clearly. Ballard also created and taught the Engineering Practice and Professional Values course, a precursor to Engineering Ethics and Sustainability, and developed a graduate course in Engineering Communications. Students not only learned to improve their writing, but also learned to give more effective presentations by practicing on video. In all, he taught more than 45 uninterrupted years.

“When teaching tech writing, I’m applying the close reading one does with poetry or a novel,” he said. “You shift your attention into first gear and proceed slowly. One student commented at the semester’s end that they were much more confident about their writing skills, but, ruefully, they had to think about every sentence now. Seemed like a fair price to me.”

Others recall Ballard’s enthusiasm, as well. 

“Jim Ballard’s wisdom, wit and kindness have shaped the Engineering Communication Center into a unique and collaborative teaching environment, and he will be dearly missed,” said Jay Turner, the James McKelvey Professor of Engineering Education, head of the Division of Engineering Education and vice dean for education. “His helpful coaching, careful reading, and editing skills are unmatched.”

While teaching, he founded the original Technical Writing Center in 1994, now known as the Engineering Communication Center (ECC). In the last decade of his tenure, Ballard provided writing consultations and assisted students and faculty with publications and grant applications.

In Ballard’s honor, the ECC created The James C. Ballard Excellence in Technical Communication Award, which will be the top prize in the annual technical writing competition. This honor will include a cash prize and will be presented at the undergraduate student awards ceremony every spring.

In his retirement, Ballard plans to continue consulting work.

“Many of the doctoral students I worked with at WashU are now engineering faculty elsewhere, with their own research groups,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful ride, kind of a dream,” Ballard said.