Educator delighted in teaching to teach
8/10/2003Dr. Joan D. Inglis, a former elementary schoolteacher who, as a University of Toledo professor of education, taught others how to teach, died yesterday in Kingston Residence of Sylvania, where she lived about 11/2 years. She was 80.
Family members did not know the cause of death. She had been in ill health.
Dr. Inglis, formerly of West Toledo, was affiliated with UT for nearly 30 years, retiring in 1987 and continuing to teach until the early 1990s as a professor emerita of elementary and early childhood education.
She had been director of the office of student field experiences and placed student teachers in area classrooms.
“Basically, she put out a lot of fires, at the same time encouraging student teachers to continue,” said her daughter Diane Wyper, also an educator. “She was student-oriented in every sense of the word.”
Dr. Inglis' expertise was in language arts and reading. She saw her role as teaching her students how to be teachers.
“She was extremely creative,” her daughter said. “My mother never thought you taught curriculum. She thought you teach the student.”
Dr. Inglis also was an author and contributed to education publications. At UT, she was director of the teacher corps program with the Springfield Local Schools from 1979 to 1982, and she was a student adviser. The Ohio Association of Teacher Educators named her Ohio Teacher Educator of the Year in 1983.
“She took an awful lot of pride in being part of the university,” her daughter Julie Christy-Givin said. “She was very strong at helping the students reach their goals and dreams.”
Dr. Inglis was a second-grade teacher about 11 years at the former Bancroft Hills Elementary School.
She was reared in the Old West End and Ottawa Hills, and she was a graduate of St. Ursula Academy. She received a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and later received a master's degree and her doctorate from UT.
“She impacted the lives of so many people and so many children,” daughter Diane said. “There are a lot of readers out there because of her.”
Survivors include her daughters, Diane Wyper and Julie Christy-Givin; sister, Janet Murtagh, and four grandchildren.
There will be no visitation, and services will be private. Arrangements are by the J. Jeffrey Fretti Mortuary.
The family requests tributes in Dr. Inglis' name to the UT retirees scholarship fund or St. Ursula Academy.