THE LINDGREN AWARD

The Lindgren Award was funded by his former students.  It allows one faculty member from McIntire to participate in the Mead program each year.

McIntire Professor Emeritus Jack Lindgren was a highly regarded teacher as well as the founder and the driving force behind the School’s renowned Advertising and Promotions program.  Known simply as “Jack” to all of his students, he joined the McIntire faculty in 1978 and retired in 2013. Over those 35 years, he was best known for leading students in his “Campaigns” class to victory in the AAF’s prestigious National Student Advertising Competition at the regional level for more than 10 years in a row and at the national level in 1982 and 2006 (second place nationally in 2004 and 2005). But his most treasured impact was at the student level in each class, everyday interactions and the well-beyond expectation investment in developing them as good people and smart business leaders.

In 2012, a former student of Lindgren’s established in his honor the John H. (Jack) Lindgren Promotions Aspects of Marketing Award, presented to an outstanding marketing student in the “Promotions Aspects of Marketing” course. In 2011, Lindgren was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. His proudest accomplishment was being named Outstanding Young Professor at UVA in 1983.

Jack died Oct. 23, 2016.

His impact was captured by one of his earliest students:

"I met Jack in 1980 right after he joined McIntire and by the spring of 1981, I was working with the team for the AAF Student Competition that he led.  Jack changed the way I worked, thought and led.  He was amazing in his way to inspire, to challenge, to cajole and at every moment instill something powerful into his students.

He was non-traditional.  He was irreverent. He hated department and school rules and focused his energy on his students.  He turned his office into a meeting room and often had dinners at his house for the group.

He was everything a professor wasn’t supposed to be and he was amazing. 

Jack got me started on my career journey with direction, confidence, curiosity and humility.  Much of the reason that I now spend so much time back at UVa teaching classes and mentoring students is to try to repay a portion of what he gave me.

I never knew a student who left an interaction with Jack without new ideas, new perspective, greater respect or greater confidence. He will be missed by thousands of his students

I was also honored to be part of helping set up the Jack Lindgren fund as part of the Mead Foundation."