Chuck Ganzert, a communications professor who dedicated more than a third of his life to teaching at NMU, passed away in Seattle on April 1.

He was presenting a paper at a meeting of the Popular Culture Association during his semester on sabbatical and had been traveling in India to study the country’s popular music scene. He suffered a stroke after presenting at the PCA conference two days before his death.

His presence, as well as his absence, has been felt by students and faculty.

Jim Cantrill, head of the communication and performance studies department at NMU, said the loss has hit hard.

“When you spend such a long time working closely with people, bonds are formed,” Cantrill said. “You become as close as family at times. And then when you suffer a loss like this, it’s almost like you lose a part of your own body.”

Ganzert first came to NMU in January of 1992 after studying at Virginia Polytech (B.A., 1975) and Ohio University (M..A & Ph.D., 1988 and 1992 respectively). He immediately became the faculty adviser of the student radio station, WUPX FM.

Cantrill said that Ganzert was a force not only on NMU’s campus but in the surrounding community as well. Ganzert was involved with the Hiawatha Music Festival, an annual summer event that draws performers from all over the country, and together with alumnus Kevin Boyle, he worked to upgrade radio station WUPX’s transmitter.

Dwight Brady, a broadcasting professor at NMU for nearly two decades, was close to Ganzert and wrote a memorial piece for the website of NMU’s American Association of University Professors chapter.

It’s titled “So sudden and so very sad, yet I hear laughter.”

“I had the pleasure of knowing Chuck for over 18 years,” Brady said of his colleague. “He was a great colleague and an even better friend. From the minute I set foot in Marquette in the summer of 1997, Chuck and [his wife] Pish made sure I was introduced to nearly everyone they knew and had me out to their house for meals and social gatherings.”

Chuck Ganzert taught at NMU for 23 years, and in that time he became a fixture in his classrooms and in his community. He will be missed.

But, as his colleague Cantrill said of the loss, “There is a vacuum here and we can’t expect to fill the void Chuck left behind. All we can do is let the train roll on.”

Classes are still being held in the communications department, and students are still putting their pens to paper; Professor Ganzert’s legacy, or at least a part of it, is living on in his students. Ganzert, a communications professor who dedicated more than a third of his life to teaching at NMU, passed away in Seattle on April 1. He was presenting a paper at a meeting of the Popular Culture Association during his semester on sabbatical and had been traveling in India to study the country’s popular music scene. He suffered a stroke after presenting at the PCA conference, two days before his death.

His presence, as well as his absence, has been felt by students and faculty. Jim Cantrill, head of the Communication and Performance Studies department at NMU, said the loss has hit hard.

“When you spend such a long time working closely with people, bonds are formed,” Cantrill said. “You become as close as family at times. And then when you suffer a loss like this, it’s almost like you lose a part of your own body.”

Cantrill said that Ganzert was a force not only on NMU’s campus but in the surrounding community as well. Ganzert was involved with the Hiawatha Music Festival, an annual summer event that draws performers from all over the country, and together with alumnus Kevin Boyle, he worked to upgrade radio station WUPX’s transmitter.

Dwight Brady, a broadcasting professor at NMU for nearly two decades, was close to Ganzert and wrote a memorial piece for the website of NMU’s American Association of University Professors chapter. It’s titled “So sudden and so very sad, yet I hear laughter.”

“I had the pleasure of knowing Chuck for over 18 years,” Brady said of his colleague. “He was a great colleague and an even better friend. From the minute I set foot in Marquette in the summer of 1997, Chuck and [his wife] Pish made sure I was introduced to nearly everyone they knew and had me out to their house for meals and social gatherings.”

Chuck Ganzert taught at NMU for 23 years, and in that time he became a fixture in his classrooms and in his community. He will be missed.

But, as his colleague Cantrill said of the loss, “There is a vacuum here and we can’t expect to fill the void Chuck left behind. All we can do is let the train roll on.”

Classes are still being held in the communications department, and students are still putting their pens to paper; Professor Ganzert’s legacy, or at least a part of it, is living on in his students.