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Description area
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History/biography
Maurice Votaw began his service as a missionary in 1922 after applying for a post at St. John’s University in Shanghai, China. After helping to found the School of Journalism there, he taught journalistic writing, history, principles of journalism and advertising, and copy editing for seventeen years.
In 1939, during the tumultuous years of the Sino-Japanese War, Votaw was asked to become an advisor to the Chinese Ministry of Information in Chungking. A leave of absence from St. John's lengthened into a stay of nine years, as returning to Shanghai was deemed unsafe. After his return in 1948, he was elected Dean of the College of the Arts at St. John's. This appointment lasted only a year, however, as the Communist forces drew nearer to the city, and in 1949, Votaw returned to the United States on what he later recalled as “the last regularly scheduled ship.”
From 1950 until his retirement in 1970, Votaw taught journalism at the University of Missouri. He is remembered as a pioneering figure at the School of Journalism, a graduate who helped to carry “the Missouri Method” to China, and returned to give what he learned in China back to the students of Missouri.
Maurice Votaw died in 1981.