JOAN HEWATT SWAIM, TCU class of 1956, is author of Walking TCU: A Historical Perspective. She has written over 35 articles for This Is TCU and The TCU magazine since 1986. She is currently working on a new historical account of TCU from the centennial year of 1973 through 2003.

The third generation of her family to be on the university staff, Joan retired in 1995 as coordinator of bibliographic control for the Mary Couts Burnett Library after 18 years of service. Her grandparents, Frank and Georgia Harris, arrived at TCU in 1921 to be the stewards of the first TCU cafeteria. After her husband's death, Mrs. Harris served for twenty-one years as university dietitian. Joan Swaim's late father, Dr. Willis G. Hewatt, was a member of the biology/geology faculty for forty-one years and chair of that department for twenty-three of those years; her mother, Elizabeth Harris Hewatt, served as biology secretary for many years.

Joan and her late husband, Johnny Swaim, are both graduates of TCU, as were her parents. Johnny was on the basketball coaching staff for twenty-one years, ten as head coach. Their children, Mike and Susie, both graduated from TCU, and now a grandson, Asher Benjamin Kurtz, is expected to continue the family tradition when he enrolls in 2009.