In Memoriam: Marion Jean McGuire Allard (1924-2012)

Jean Allard, the first woman vice president at the University of Chicago, died late last month at a nursing facility in Chicago, following a long illness. She was 87 years old.

A native of Trenton, Missouri, Allard was a graduate of Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Missouri. She earned a master’s degree at Washington University in St. Louis. She planned to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Chicago but changed course and enrolled in the university’s law school. She served as managing editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and earned her degree in 1953, one of only two women in that year’s graduating class.

Allard worked as an antitrust lawyer and as a corporate general counsel. She returned to the University of Chicago in 1972 as vice president for business and finance. She was the first woman to hold the title of vice president at the university. She left the university in 1976 to become the first woman partner of the law firm now known as SNR Denton.