Margaret E. Ward taught in the German Department from 1971-2010 and also helped establish the Women’s and Gender Studies Department. She was the William R.Kenan, Jr. Professor  in 1995-97. A prize in her name is awarded in Women's and Gender  Studies to graduating seniors.

During her years at Wellesley, Ward taught German language, literature, and culture at all levels. She also taught inter-disciplinary courses and several different courses in the Writing Program. She offered seminars on Bertolt Brecht, Christa Wolf, and at the end of her tenure a course on "Latin America and the Caribbean in the German Imagination." In retirement she is teaching English as a second language to adult Hispanics.

NEH, Fulbright, and Mellon fellowships/grants supported Ward's research on Brecht, post-45 political drama and women's biography.  Her study of Fanny Lewald (1811-1889), novelist, essayist and early advocate of women's right to education and work, was published in 2006. In 2011 her  memoir, Missing Mila, Finding Family: An International Adoption in the Shadow of the Salvadoran Civil War, appeared in the Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series of the U. of Texas Press. In conjunction with this book, Ward maintains a Missing Mila webpage.

Ward has been active in the Women in German organization on the national and local level. She is on the Advisory Board of the Institut für feministische Biographieforschung (Hannover, Germany) and has contributed many biographical sketches for both the Berühmte Frauenkalender and the fembio website.

In both her retirement communities, Ward sings in choral groups and actively supports conservation, for example the NH Lakes Lake Host program. Gardening, swimming, reading in several languages, and travel are abiding activities.