Mickie Edwardson

Professor of Broadcasting
First female faculty member of the College
First female UF Distinguished Service Professor
Producer and director at WUFT-TV/FM

CJC Legends 2026

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Mickie Newbill Edwardson was a professor of Broadcasting and a director and producer for WUFT at the College of Journalism and Communications (CJC). Born in Texas, Edwardson earned her undergraduate degree from the Texas State College for Women, her master’s degree from Stanford and her Doctorate from Michigan State University.

She began her career at UF in 1956, becoming the first woman appointed as a full-time faculty member at CJC. Although she was the odd one out on an all-men faculty body, she made efforts to fit in. “I tried to drop a few “hells” and “damns” at faculty meetings to make them sort of comfortable,” she recalled in an interview for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. Her students remember her as tough but fair, and in 1985, she was rewarded for her teaching excellence by becoming the first woman at UF to be named a Distinguished Service Professor.

She did more at CJC than just teach, however. In 1958, when WUFT-TV was established and began broadcasting, she became one of the station’s first producers and directors, helping guide the budding station through its formative years. She also programmed classical music for WRUF-FM. Although she retired from teaching in 1994, she would continue to contribute to WUFT until her passing in 2010. She would often pitch stories to the television station and would volunteer at pledge drives, where she continued to show her love for classical music by producing opera programming.

When not teaching or producing television content, Edwardson could be found helping out with local organizations like the Gainesville Little Theatre, Friends of the Public Library, the League of Women Voters and The United Nations Association. She was a staunch supporter of the first amendment and of women’s rights, establishing an endowed scholarship at CJC in memory of James Lawrence Fly, an F.C.C. commissioner and director of the ACLU who Edwardson wrote about extensively. Just a few years after coming to UF, she also worked with the United States Information Service to establish the first educational television broadcast in Guatemala.

Edwardson is remembered for her service to both her community and her college and for being a trailblazer, not just at CJC but at UF as a whole. “In her 38 years of outstanding service to the College and the University of Florida, Mickie Edwardson had the complete trust of both faculty and administrators because of her personal course, her fairness, her good judgment and her record of outstanding leadership,” said Dean Emeritus Ralph Lowenstein. “There are few persons who walk across this academic stage with that kind of respect.”