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Leadership in 1996–97

Pauline Boss

1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Pauline Boss, new NCFR President, was of Swiss decent and grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. Her grade school was a one-room rural school where she learned her reading and research skills. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UWM) in 1956, taught at Madison Memorial High School, and began raising two children. Her master’s and PhD were also from UWM, in family systems. Her advisors included Carl Whitaker, Bert Adams, and E. E. LeMasters. She gave her first presentation at NCFR on “Father Absence” in 1972. Her strength was her ability to combine research, theory, and application (applying abstract theories to everyday life.) Jane Allyn Pilianin was her research advisor in social psychology, and Jerald Hage (a sociologist) encouraged her to expand on her ideas of “ambiguous loss” as early as 1972. Reuben Hill became her mentor in the family stress area. She taught at UWM for several years. In 1981 Dick Hey, then department chair of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, hired Boss to develop the Marriage and Family Therapy Program. She became a full-time tenured professor at the University of Minnesota, from which she is now retired. In 1995–96 she spent a year at the Harvard University Medical School teaching the social constructionism perspective and writing the book Ambiguous Loss, which has since been translated into eight different languages. She became an active member and leader of NCFR, holding several positions, including President. In 1999 she was named an NCFR Fellow, and in 2002 she was awarded the Ernest Burgess Award.

2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 She continues to travel the world, training professionals who work with families in stress from war and natural disasters. (Taken from Pioneering Paths in the Study of Families, Haworth Press, 2001.)

3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 The Board consisted of the following:

  • 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0
  • President-Elect: Greer Litton Fox
  • Program Vice President: Ralph La Rossa
  • Program Vice President-Elect: Judith Myers-Walls
  • Membership Vice President: Rosemary Blieszner
  • Public Policy Vice President: Nancy Kingsbury
  • Publications Vice President: Richard Gelles
  • Past President: Michael Sporakowski
  • Secretary: Shirley Hanson
  • Treasurer: Gay C. Kitson
  • AOC President: Anne Stanberry
  • AOC President-Elect: James Ponzetti
  • Students/New Professionals Representative: Karen Myers-Bowman
  • Students/New Professionals Representative-Elect: Pamela Choice

5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 Section chairs were as follows: Sally Kees Martin, EE; Velma McBride Murray, EM; Patricia Tomlinson, FH; Leanor Boulin Johnson, FP; Rebecca Adams, FS; Janice Long, FT; Leigh Leslie, FF; John DeFrain, IN; Don Swenson, RF; Alan Booth, RT.

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