Joan Buckley (1931-2019)

Dr. Joan N. Buckley had a long and fulfilling career at Concordia College, honored by the awards she gained during her tenure. One of three female professors at Concordia in 1956 when she began her work for the college, Dr. Buckley made her mark on campus by being the first female faculty member to receive her doctoral degree while employed, married, and raising a child. While this accomplishment was not appreciated at the time, the achievement came to be respected in Concordia’s history.

Born in 1931 to Reverend Carl and Helene Nagelstad in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Helene Joan Nagelstad was brought up in a conservative Lutheran family. The family quickly moved to Ellsworth, Iowa where Nagelstad grew up interested in both academics and Lutheranism, as her father was a pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church and her mother was a graduate from a Lutheran college. Naglestad graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota in 1952, with majors in both English and music.  While there, she sought knowledge from her self-proclaimed mentor and the first woman to graduate from Concordia and go on to earn a doctorate: Dr. Marie Malmin Myer. After a brief teaching assignment at the Martin Luther School in Rimbach, Germany, Naglestad earned her master’s degree in English from the University of Chicago in 1956. Immediately following this accompishment, Joan Naglestad joined the Concordia faculty. [1]

Once on the Concordia campus, Naglestad was surprised to see that she was one of only three female educators at the college, showing just how few opportunities there were for women on Concordia’s faculty. She also quickly discovered the rigorous teaching demands set by the administration, including five freshman composition classes with about thirty-five students in each one for six class days a week, as the college held Saturday classes at this time. Naglestad recalled in an interview that she read 175 student papers per week, noting: “I’m not sure how I survived.” As she began her teaching career, Naglestad also began a relationship with another faculty member, Dr. Wendell Buckley of the music department. They soon wed and the newly married Naglestad became Joan N. Buckley, shortening her maiden name to an abbreviation.  Buckley quickly became pregnant with her first child and many conservative faculty members tried persuading her to take a leave from teaching to focus on the duties of being a wife and mother, but Buckley refused. [2]

Her response was one example of her advocacy for women’s representation on campus. Buckley pointed to the ridiculousness of the traditional roles women were expected to hold as students and faculty at Concordia, and the rules they had to follow. During the mid-twentieth century, Concordia women students were restricted to their dorm rooms once the sun set. Additionally, women had to follow dress codes, most notably women were prohibited from wearing slacks; the only place a woman could wear them at the time was in the Carl B. Ylvisaker Library until the rule was amended. Buckley related a male professor’s opinion on the debate about the dress code: “if the women are allowed to wear slacks, we men can wear skirts.” As Buckley recalled, “[that was] ridiculous." [3] Buckley, despite warnings that her children (as she would become pregnant again shortly after the birth of her first child) were to turn into juvenile delinquents if she kept teaching, stayed the course and continued to work towards her doctorate. [4] Ever the advocate for women’s rights, Buckley co-founded the first Women’s Studies course at Concordia in 1974, but was still bogged down by the ever-growing presence of her dissertation. However, in 1976, at the age of 45 and a mother of two, Joan N. Buckley earned her doctoral degree from the University of Iowa. [5]

After attaining her Ph.D., Buckley’s opportunities to grow on and off campus increased. In 1982, Dr. Buckley and Dr. Verlyn Anderson launched a new Scandinavian studies minor on campus, in cooperation with Hamar Teacher’s College, a school located in Fargo’s sister city, Hamar, Norway. Also in 1982, Dr. Buckley became the first recipient of the Lily B. Gyldenvand Endowed Professorship of Communications, a prestigious award given to those who show great success in the areas of author, editor, and communicator through literature. In 1988, Buckley was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities opportunity to attend a summer seminar on “The Theory of American Romance” at the University of Arizona, Tucson. [6]

From the 1990s-2005, Dr. Buckley steadily taught English, women’s and gender studies, and Scandinavian studies courses to thousands of students passing through Concordia College’s doors. In 2005, Dr. Buckley announced her retirement as a professor from Concordia after forty-nine years of teaching and 10,000 college students graded. Buckley then moved to California to be closer to her children, who were medical doctors in the state. She lived there until passing away at the age of 88 surrounded by family members on March 12, 2019. [7]

Author: Jake Seboe

Footnotes:

[1] “Dr. Joan N. Buckley,” Wright Funeral Home, accessed April 4, 2022, https://www.wrightfuneral.com/obituary/joan-n-buckley/; Dr. Joan N. Buckley, “Concordia College Archives Oral History Project,” interview by Ann Hogberg, Concordia College Archives, Moorhead, Minnesota, April 23, 2001, audio; Wright Funeral Home, “Dr. Joan N. Buckley;” Dr. Joan N. Buckley, “Oral History Project

[2] Dr. Joan N. Buckley, “Oral History Project.”

[3] Dr. Joan N. Buckley, “Oral History Project.”

[4] John Reinan, “Joan Buckley A Lively and Inspiring Professor: After Facing Inequity Herself, She Fought to Empower Women," Star Tribune, April 4, 2019, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2202907140/F345D5B57FAE4BBDPQ/1?account....

[5] Dr. Joan N. Buckley, “Oral History Project.”

[6] Carroll Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded, (Moorhead: Concordia College, 1991), 336; Engelhardt, Firm Foundation Grounded, 325; “People,” Concordian April 22, 1988, 2.

[7] Sherri Richards, “Professor ‘Resting Her Eyes:’ After 50 Years and 10,000 Students, Buckley Retires,” The Fargo Forum, May 1, 2005, A8; Reinan, “A Lively and Inspiring Professor”; Wright Funeral Home, “Dr. Joan N. Buckley.”