By Charlene Winters, ‘73
THE School of Family Life, in conjunction with the Family Life Education Institute, is responding to the family proclamation issued by the Church of Jesus Christ with a one-day conference scheduled for March 19, 2002.
The conference will focus on the proclamation’s concluding paragraph, which challenges “responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.”
According to conference chair Alan J. Hawkins, ’79, professor of family life, the conference will “help strengthen marriage and family by promoting family life education and supporting family life educators.”
The conference’s keynote speaker, Oklahoma’s secretary for health and human services, will discuss Oklahoma’s plans to reduce the state’s divorce rate by one-third over the next 10 years.
“We hope this will be the first of many such conferences,” Hawkins says. “It fills a gap in our curriculum and should provide guidelines for our graduates and others interested in family issues. I recently had dinner with a graduate from our program who was passionate about helping and serving in her community as a family life educator. But her full-time employment and the recent birth of her first child are making it difficult for her to realize that passion. As she wondered what she could do, I realized this conference should be able to create a lot of possibilities for people in situations like hers.”
While the event is open to anyone, it is designed for family life educators and students in the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences. The conference fee is $35 for alumni and friends and $5 for students.
info: 1-800-452-5662, www.familylifeeducation.org
