M. Margaret Ball
Week of March 26, 2001

M. Margaret Ball, a specialist on international relations, combined teaching with public service. Her participation in the formation of the United Nations, unusual for a female academic then, gave her extraordinary visibility in the realm of international relations and strengthened her influence in the Political Science department. She was a dominant presence, inspiring colleagues to emulate her style of teaching as well as her principles.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ball received her undergraduate and master's degrees from Stanford in 1931. After study and research at UCLA, she had an opportunity to study at the law school of the University of Cologne on a German-American Student Exchange Fellowship. Her experience there presented her with a dilemma. "I witnessed the birth of the Nazi regime," she later recalled. "I was torn between wanting to leave in anger, and remaining to make a study of it. I finally chose the latter." She stayed to complete her degree, later incorporating what she learned in her doctoral thesis, Post-War German-Austrian Relations, published by Stanford University Press in 1937.

After teaching for a year at Vassar, Ball came to Wellesley in 1936 as a member of the political science department. Nardi Reeder Campion '38, was one of Ball's early students. "I took Poli Sci 208, 'International Politics,' and had my consciousness raised about Nazi Germany," Campion remembers. "People said you could do business with Hitler, but there was no doubt in Miss Ball's mind that he was a monster."

Barbara Buckstein Green '54 describes Ball as a demanding teacher who insisted that "understanding the facts was a prerequisite for intelligent discussion." She had high expectations of the quality of work students could do, and they found themselves striving to meet her expectations.

From March 1943 to August 1944 Ball took time off from Wellesley to serve as a specialist in international organization for the State Department. She was assistant to the advisor to the executive secretary of the International Secretariat during the San Francisco Conference in 1945, during which the Charter of the United Nations was drafted.

Ball received a number of fellowships to study regionalism and regional organizations such as NATO, SEATO, and the OAS. Research for her book, NATO and the European Union Movement, was supported by NATO and Guggenheim Fellowships. The book won first prize in the British Section of the Atlantic Community Awards. Ball was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960.

An avid fan of mysteries, Ball enjoyed reading the Maigret detective series by George Simenon. "They not only amuse me, they enable me to keep my French from getting rusty."

In 1963 she was named dean of the Woman's College at Duke University. After six years she returned to teaching and later became director of Duke's international studies program. Paula Burger, a student leader during Ball's tenure and a former Duke administrator, said, "I think she was always open to students, not in any warm and fuzzy ways, but any students who had an idea about how to enrich academic opportunities would have had a ready audience with her."

Ball retired from Duke in 1975.

She served as a Wellesley College faculty trustee from 1967 to 1970. At Commencement in 1996, President Diana Chapman Walsh announced that Craig Murphy was the first M. Margaret Ball Professor of International Relations, a chair established in Ball's honor by one of her former students, Luella LaMer Slaner '41.

M. Margaret Ball died in Durham, North Carolina, on September 14, 1999.

Written by Wilma Slaight