Four 2008 NCFR Fellows Chosen in Little Rock, AR

Fellow status is an honor awarded to members of NCFR who have made outstanding and enduring contributions to family science in the areas of scholarship, teaching, outreach, and professional service, as well as a consistent record of superior contributions to NCFR over time.  Fellows are nominated by their peers and selected by the Fellows Committee.

At the 2008 Annual Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Fellows Committee (Judith Myers-Walls, Chair; Carol A. Darling, CFLE; Harold D. Grotevant; Greer Litton Fox; Robert M. Milardo) selected the following four NCFR members as Fellows in 2008: 

Pamela A. Monroe, Ph.D. is Professor of Social Work and Adjunct Professor of Human Ecology at the Louisiana State University, Project Director at the Louisiana Poverty Center and faculty affiliate at the Life Course and Aging Center, and Women’s and Gender Studies Program.  The word extraordinary appears often in discussions of Dr. Monroe’s contributions to her university, state and many professional venues.  This is not surprising as the many challenges she has weathered are remarkable and the leadership demonstrated of the very best kind.  Dr. Monroe served as president of the National Council on Family Relations during one of the more challenging periods in the council’s history including a controversial federal grant program that called into question core values and threatened to splinter the membership, a sudden change in the executive office, and a term which began early due to the critical illness of her predecessor.   And all of this occurred in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the midst of disarray that affected her community, university, and her family, who sheltered a family displaced by the disaster.  NCFR is fortunate to have benefited from many tireless and talented professionals that have provided vision and guidance throughout its long history.  Dr. Monroe’s leadership is of that brand — thoughtful, responsive and resolute.  She is widely recognized for her contributions in the field of family policy having served in several leadership positions and chair of the Family Policy section.  She twice edited special issues of Family Relations on family policy and law and regularly publishes on policy issues.  She has worked with two state legislatures (Georgia and Louisiana), testified at public hearings, worked directly with the Louisiana Department of Social Services, Governor’s office, and the Child Poverty Prevention Council.  She has been instrumental in drafting important legislation for the benefit of families at the federal and state level.  She has provided services to a variety of state agencies and nonprofit groups and is highly regarded for her professionalism, singular knowledge of issues, and steadfast determination to support the needs of low-income families.  Paralleling this advocacy and policy development are long-standing contributions to research on rural families, issues of poverty, and work opportunities of women exiting welfare.  Then too, Dr. Monroe has served as interim dean, a division head for her unit, endowed professor in Human Ecology and along the way secured numerous grants to fund her work for families.  Her leadership, as one reviewer noted, is emblematic of the very best contributions to the well-being of children and families and to other policy professionals working with families.

Paul C. Rosenblatt, Ph.D. is a Professor of Family Social Science and the Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Rosenblatt is a superb family scholar as demonstrated by his consistent and productive career. He is recognized for his lengthy, innovative, and cutting-edge work across multiple family disciplines, as well as cultural and ethnic boundaries. Throughout his distinguished career of over 45 years, the breadth of his work could be categorized with the theme of experience in everyday family life. He has written about varied topics such as death and grief, living as a multiracial couple, rural families, families in business, emotional distancing in families, using metaphors to stimulate theoretical thinking, and couple bed sharing. In addition to publishing 11 books, he has published 113 research papers and scholarly essays, which are often coauthored with his students. Four of his books have received awards including his most recent book, Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing, which was identified as one of the top 10 university press books of 2006. The significance of Dr. Rosenblatt’s contributions to the area of grief research is noteworthy and demonstrated by hundreds of scholarly citations of his work, editorial roles in the leading grief journals, and many contributions to edited books and journal articles on grief. He is often called upon nationally and internationally to provide workshops and plenary addresses in his areas of expertise. As an active NCFR member for 40 years, he has consistently presented papers and posters at annual meetings and has served as a reviewer for several of the sections and NCFR journals. He has been a member of many award committees, founded the Grief and Families Focus Croup and co-founded the Rural Families Focus Group. In 1997, he received NCFR’s Ernest G. Osborne Award for Outstanding Leadership and Excellence in the Teaching of Family Relationships. He is also known for his mentoring of graduate students and investment in their professional development. While at the University of Minnesota he has served in some capacity on 181 graduate student exams or directed master’s theses or dissertations in his career. In terms of volume, substance, and innovation, Dr. Rosenblatt has made numerous significant contributions to the field of family science and will continue to do so for many generations of new family scholars.

Ronald M. Sabatelli, Ph.D., CFLE is Professor and Head of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut. He has made important contributions to our understanding of family systems dynamics, family measurement, and the role of family dynamics in adolescent development. His widely-used book, Family Interaction: A Multigenerational Developmental Perspective (co-authored with Stephen A. Anderson) is now in its fourth edition. He is the author of many research articles and chapters and serves on the editorial boards of Family Relations and the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
In his role as Senior Research Associate in the Center for Applied Research in Human Development at UConn, he has been a leader in bringing knowledge of family theory, adolescent development, measurement, and program evaluation to numerous community and youth programs and agencies in the State of Connecticut. His outreach efforts have been significant in meeting funders’ demands for accountability and empirical validation of effective youth programming. Ron has been active in NCFR since he was a graduate student, and he has had numerous leadership roles in the Research and Theory Section, which he now chairs.

Lynda Henley Walters, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita at the University of Georgia, where she has served as Professor and Department Head of Child and Family Development and as Associate Dean for Research and Instruction of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.  Her contributions to the family field include pioneering work in the study of adolescent pregnancy, the parenting of children with alternative sexual orientations, father-child relationships, and comparative family research; and she was instrumental in introducing the importance of family law perspectives to family policy research. Her contributions to graduate education are unparalleled. She has served as major professor for 28 doctoral students and 13 Master’s students and served on over 140 graduate student committees at the University of Georgia. She was a founder in 1977 of Quint State, a conference organized and run wholly by and for graduate students. Known more formally as the Annual Southeastern Symposium on Child and Family Development, Quint State revolves among five universities in the Southeast and continues to this day. Lynda’s national leadership includes service on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marriage and Family, Family Relations, and the Journal of Home Economics. She has served as President of NCFR (1990-1991) and has held other NCFR offices and many committee leadership roles.  She has also served as Chairs of NCFR Strategic Planning and Long Range Planning Committees, responsible for charting the future of NCFR. She has also been very involved in coordinating NCFR activities in conjunction with the International Years of the Family. Her superior record of contributions to NCFR, her international research and participation in global conferences, and her distinguished scholarship taken altogether have made an enduring contribution to the field of family science.

Congratulations to these very worthy Fellows!  Please extend your congratulations to them for their contributions to our field.

NCFR Fellows Nomination Form
NCFR Fellows Policies and Procedures
List of Current NCFR Fellows

NCFR Legacy Circle - NCFR Members of 25 years or more
Legacy Circle


NCFR Award Winners
These are distinguished colleagues who have unselfishly dedicated themselves to working in the family field, and have given outstanding service. NCFR provides a vehicle for honoring these people through its Awards program. NCFR Award Winner Complete History

Margaret E. Arcus Outstanding Family Life Educator Award - 2008 - Carol A. Darling, CFLE, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Ernest W. Burgess Award - 2008 - Paul R. Amato, Penn State University, University Park, PA
Ernest Osborne Award - 2009 - Ramona Faith Oswald, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
John L. McAdoo Dissertation Award - 2004 - Monica Mouton Sanders, Michigan State University
Marie F. Peters Award - 2009 - Francisco A. Villarruel, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Jan Trost Award - 2008 - Katsuko Makino, Yokohama, Japan
Jessie Bernard Award - Outstanding Research Proposal from a Feminist Perspective - 2009 - Ryo Hirayama, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
Jessie Bernard Award - Outstanding Contribution to Feminist Scholarship Paper - 2009 - Amy Brainer, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Ruth Hathaway Jewson Award - 2008 - Laura E. Miller, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Reuben Hill Award - 2009 - Sarah Meadows, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Sara McLanahan, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, National Center for Children & Families, New York, NY. Article: (2008) "Stability and Change in Family Structure and Maternal Health Trajectories." American Sociological Review, 73, 314-334.
NCFR Student Award - 2009 - Spencer B. Olmstead, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Mary Jo Czaplewski Fellowship - 2007 - Rose Suggett, University of Nebraska-Kearney
Anselm Strauss Award for Qualitative Family Research - 2009 - Oswald, Ramona Faith & Masciadrelli, Brian P. (2008).- "Generative Ritual Among Nonmetropolitan Lesbians and Gay Men: Promoting Social Inclusion," Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol 70 (November 2008): 1060-1073.
Cindy Winter Scholarship Award - 2009 - Lyndal Bee Lian Khaw, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL