Edith Marjorie Harrod Award

Edith served as President of the Illinois Speech Association in 1966, and was a member of the Illinois Board of Education for five years. She taught Drama and English at Eureka High School from 1943 to 1951. She taught Drama at Pekin Community High School from 1951 to 1971. She was an Associate Professor of Creative Arts at Illinois Central College where she taught Speech and Drama until her death in 1976. At Illinois Central College she created an interdisciplinary course in the humanities including art, drama, music and philosophy. She received her B.A. degree from Eureka College in 1943, and her M.A. degree from the University of Iowa in 1949. She completed additional graduate study at Northwestern University in Evanston and the University of Minnesota. In 1961, she was awarded the John Hay Fellowship in Humanities. She attended symposia on theater at Stratford, Ontario, Canada, in 1965, 1966 and 1968, studying with Tyrone Guthrie, who helped establish the Shakespeare Festival there, and who founded the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. She was director of Broadway Theater League and Cornstock Theater. She directed plays for Cornstock Theater and at Illinois Central College directed Readers' Theater and Plays for Living. The Harrod award is in recognition of distinguished service to the Association and outstanding achievement in the profession.

2025 Edith Marjorie Harrod Award Winner

Ed Schwarz-  Prairie State College

Less than a year after retiring from Prairie State College in 2018, Ed was approached by the Executive Board about becoming the Executive Director of ICTA. After some back-and-forth discussions about the position and its requirements, the Board appointed Ed to be the Executive Director in the Spring of 2019. In August, 2019, Prairie State College agreed to house ICTA’s Central Office, and over the next few months ICTA moved all of its business and convention materials, as well as its physical archives, to the PSC Campus. Since then, Ed has taken great pleasure in serving the Board and the Association as its Executive Director.

Ed came to Prairie State College in 1995 after teaching in Japan (6 years) and Los Angeles (20 years). He became a member of Illinois Speech and Theatre Association (ISTA, the former name for ICTA) in 1996 when his colleague, Kasey Kephart, a long-time member of the Association, told him he must attend the ICTA Convention held at the Drake Oakbrook Hotel (which was Elighie Wilson’s convention). She was absolutely right. That one convention was all it took for Ed to realize that he wanted to be a part of the Association. The members he met, and the sessions he attended, were exactly what he needed to thrive as a communication educator in Illinois.

From 1997 to 1999, Ed served as Secretary for ISTA. In 2002, he was elected Vice President (the position currently called 2nd Vice President), assuming the presidency in 2005. In a rare departure from usual practice, Ed switched conventions with BJ Lawrence, and planned the 2006 convention while he was president. His convention theme was “Making Connections,” which can refer to connections between ideas or disciplines, but most importantly refers to connections between individuals. It is those personal connections that Ed has most treasured over the years; he says that he credits any success he has had to those people with whom he was fortunate enough to make connections. If it weren't for the inspiration, support, and encouragement of so, so, soooo many ISTA/ICTA members, past and present, Ed says his contributions would be negligible, and ICTA would never have had reason to present him with the Edith Harrod Award, for which he is very appreciative.