The Barbara Emily Knudson Chair in Family Policy

In 1991, a gift from Barbara Emily Knudson '39 made possible the establishment of the nation's first endowed chair in family policy. Her philanthropy, combined with the completion of the Family Study Center, affords OSU and its College of Public Health and Human Sciences the opportunity to become the national leader in the study of family issues.

In making her gift, Mrs. Knudson said: "Families are the basis of our entire world, and in the modern situation, with single parent families and so forth, I thought they needed more help and assistance."

Barbara Knudson continued the OSU tradition established by her father, Joel Emily, who was a member of the Oregon State Pacific Coast Championship football team in 1906. Following her graduation, she taught high school in Junction City for several years, eventually becoming dean of girls. She then married and moved to Portland where she did occasional substitute teaching. She was also active in the American Association of University Women and served on the board of the Christie School. Mrs. Knudson passed away in September 2009.

The holder of the Barbara Emily Knudson Chair in Family Policy serves as a resource in family policy issues to help prepare graduate students for service in a variety of public policy and community service capacities. The chair adds public policy analysis to the already strong family sciences undergraduate instruction, research, and community services programs in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

Alan Acock

Dr. Alan Acock Preeminent statistician Alan Acock was named the second holder of the Knudson Chair in 2008. Since 1990, he has been a jointly-appointed professor of sociology in OSU's College of Liberal Arts and professor of human development and family sciences in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences, serving as chair of the latter department from 1990 to 2002.

Professor Acock collaborates with other OSU researchers on projects such as self-regulation in young children, how family dynamics shape the development of children, and the impact of positive action programs to prevent risky behaviors in young children.

"I want to find ways to strengthen families and make the trajectory of adolescence more successful," says Acock, the father of four boys. "Youth today face so many choices and challenges that impact whole families." Informing state and national policy makers about current research is a critical part of effecting positive change, he notes. "There is a huge body of research that has implications for policy for children and families."

After completing his doctoral degree in sociology at Washington State University, Dr. Acock was awarded tenure at University of Southern California. He then taught at Virginia Tech, University of Oklahoma, and Louisiana State University, directing LSU's interdisciplinary Center for Life Cycle and Population Studies from 1986 to 1990.

Author of A Gentle Introduction to Stata, he served as editor of the Sourcebook for Family Theory and Research and has published more than 100 scholarly articles.

In 2007, Acock received the Ernest G. Osborne Award for excellence in teaching from the National Council on Family Relations. In her nomination, Alexis Walker, holder of the Jo Anne Leonard Petersen Chair in Gerontology and Family Studies, wrote, "He is the person to whom generations of students and scholars have turned for research advice. For decades, his substantive empirical articles and books, and now his instructionally based manuals, have set the standard for educating students—the future researchers and leaders of the field of family studies."