11-30-07

Media Release

Professor Receives National Award for Teaching

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University professor Alan Acock has received the Ernest G. Osborne Award for excellence in teaching from the National Council on Family Relations. The announcement was made at the organization’s recent annual conference in Pittsburgh.

The award recognizes individuals who demonstrate excellence in the teaching of family relationships. It is in memory of Ernest G. Osborne, three-time president of the National Council on Family Relations and a family life educator at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The award is granted biannually to an individual from the United States or Canada who demonstrates professional excellence in the various aspects of teaching family studies.

Acock is a professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at OSU. He was cited for giving outstanding service as an educator by setting the standard for educating students about statistics and research methods.

He has published more than 80 journal articles in the areas of research methods, statistics, family theory and family studies. This includes the article “Working with Missing Values” published in 2005 in the Journal of Marriage and Family. This article has set the standard for the treatment of missing data in the field of family studies.

Acock earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Washington University and his doctorate from Washington State University. He is widely known for his book, “A Gentle Introduction to Stata” (2006, Stata Press), and has co-authored other books, including “Family Diversity and Well-Being” (1994, Sage Publications). He is also co-editor of the 2005 Sourcebook of Marriage and Family Theory and Research (Sage Publications).

An OSU colleague, Alexis Walker, said of Acock in her nomination letter: “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.”

The National Council on Family Relations, founded in 1938, is a member-funded, nonprofit network of family professionals who encourage research and information sharing on and about families as well as the application of knowledge to familial and societal problems.