Donor Spotlight
Linda Gugin & Jim St. Clair
Forty Year Friendship between Retired IU Southeast Professors Linda Gugin and James St. Clair Forges Lifelong Support of IU Southeast
As professional colleagues for 40 years, Linda Gugin, a professor emeritus of political science, and Jim St. Clair, a professor emeritus of journalism, collaborated on six books that highlight Hoosier history. Five of these six books were published by the Indiana Historical Society Press, which only publishes three to four books a year, and the most recent book is “The Court of Appeals of Indiana” released in April of 2022.
Gugin received her undergraduate degree, master’s and Ph.D. from University of Georgia. Her first teaching job was at the University of Maine. When she arrived at IU Southeast, she was excited at the prospect of working with a diverse student population.
“The fact that so many of the students that I taught, had real world experience,” said Gugin. “And because I taught politics, they could see the relevance of politics to their own lives.”
Gugin went on to teach for 38 years at IU Southeast.
St. Clair took a different route to IU Southeast. After serving in the U.S. Army, he enrolled as a full time student in 1969 and was the editor of the student newspaper his senior year. He received his degree in journalism and worked in the field for several years.
“Luckily, a journalism teaching position at IU Southeast opened up in 1987,” said St. Clair. “It was supposed to be just for the spring semester. I ended up staying for 25 years.”
They were co-winners of the Distinguished Research & Creativity Senior Award in 2007.
A New Collaboration
Years after retiring from IU Southeast, Gugin and St. Clair collaborated again, this time by getting married in 2016.
“We were able to share our teaching experiences with each other,” said Gugin. “We never had any significant disagreement when working together on the books, nothing serious that would affect our friendship. We just finally got around to getting married.”
St. Clair recalls how valuable his friendship with Gugin was to his early teaching career.
“Linda was my mentor because I had no teaching experience, but lots of professional journalism experience,” said St. Clair. “I mean I didn’t even know how to write a syllabus. I couldn’t get through the first few semesters without her guidance. She was my guiding light.”
Jim St. Clair and Linda Gugin with their co-authored book, Indiana’s 200, The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State
Jim St. Clair, Roger Howard and Linda Gugin at a 2017 scholarship luncheon. Howard was the recipient of the Linda C. Gugin scholarship for political science students.
Linda C. Gugin Scholarship & Mike Spencer Scholarship Established
Both professors are big believers in investing in the future of IU Southeast and have set up scholarship funds to provide opportunities to students in their respective fields. The Linda C. Gugin scholarship is for political science students who are active in student organizations or community service. St. Clair established the Mike Spencer scholarship for journalism students. This scholarship is named in honor of Mike Spencer, a former student and newspaper editor at IU Southeast and former journalist at The Jeffersonville Evening News, who tragically passed away at a young age.
“It is just rewarding to know that in some small way, we have helped students,” said Gugin. “We loved teaching at IU Southeast. I think we were both very lucky that we ended up where we did, sort of in some ways it might have been serendipity why we ended up there. I'm grateful that I made the friends that I did and I taught the students that I did.”
St. Clair echoes those thoughts.
“I think you should pay it forward,” said St. Clair. “If you've benefited from a scholarship or some other means, it's not that you have an absolute obligation, but I think that it is important to try to help other people the way that you’ve been helped.”