Wade, James Edgar (1910-2002)
Date Updated
10-26-2019
Department
Office Administration (later Marketing)
Academic Rank
Professor
Year Retired from SJSU
1980
Educational Background
Saint Louis University, 1942 Ph.D.
University of Notre Dame, 1935 MA
University of Notre Dame, 1933 BA
Teaching Experience
San Jose State University, 1964-1980
Santa Clara University, 1948-1960
University of San Francisco, 1940-1948
Saint John's University, Brooklyn, NY, 1939-1940
Saint Louis University, 1936-1939
Administrative and Professional Experience
Manager, Texaco Service Station, Tulsa, OK, 1926‑1929.
Office Manager, Jones & Laughlin Steel, 1934‑1935.
Manager, Education & Training, General Electric, 1960‑1964.
Selected Publications
Radiation Monitoring, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 1967, with Gene Cunningham.
Medieval Rhetoric in Shakespeare, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1944.
The Programmed Sequence as an Exercise in Precise Writing, Journal of Business Communication, October, 1964.
The Supervisor and Programmed Instruction, Training Directors Journal, July, 1964.
The Hanford Atomic Energy Project, Richland, Washington, Atomic Energy Commission/General Electric Co., 1963.
Streamlining Organizational Communication, 1975, SJSU, with Prof. Ted Sielaff.
Files
Personal Commentary
I was born into a family of Pennsylvanians. In 1906, my dad followed the oil business to Indian Territory. In 1907, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were combined to form the 46th state, the State of Oklahoma. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, December 8, 1910.
After completing 12 years in Holy Family School in Tulsa, I went to Notre Dame in 1929. My BA degree, with major in philosophy, was the result of a pre‑law course; I had elected 4 pre‑law courses. In 1933, after a summer in vaudeville with the Notre Dame Glee Club, I entered the University of Oklahoma Law School. During my first semester, Francis C. Kelly, Bishop of Oklahoma, advised me to go on for an MA in philosophy under Professor Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gibson. The two philosophers came down from Toronto, Canada, to start a Medieval Institute in the USA. I took the bishop's advice and returned to Notre Dame; I was one of the first three students in the Medieval Institute at Notre Dame.
After a year in business in Tulsa, I entered Saint Louis University in Missouri. The head of the English department asked me to join his English department. I did. Marshall McLuhan became a professor there and was chairman of my Ph.D. committee.
In 1960, I gave up a tenured full professorship at Santa Clara University to become a manager at General Electric. When I learned of an opening at SJSU, I applied for it, and was thus able to come home to San Jose. At SJSU, I met, and later married, Professor Lorraine Gardiner. We have been married over 25 years.
Date Completed: 10/96
Adapted from: Biographies of Retired Faculty San Jose State University 1997: A Project of the Emeritus Faculty Association of San Jose State University. San Jose, CA: The University, 1997.