Ann Hancook

Former associate Dean in the School of Consumer and Family Sciences, and assistant director of the Purdue Extension, Ann C. Hancook, is remembered for her dedication to support studies about the health, development and well-being of adult family members. She died November 13, 1993 after battling cancer for two years.

Throughout her 23 year career with the Extension Service, Dean Hancook was devoted to improving life opportunities for low-income families – health, well-being, and development of adults as individuals, parents, and partners.

Her tireless efforts to benefit Hoosier families set the stage within the School for the creation of the Center for Families.

Dean Hancook received the Special Recognition Award from the Purdue Extension Specialists Association in 1980 for a program she developed called Dollar Sense. She also initiated the 1991 Hoosier Family Policy Summit, which was the predecessor to the Indiana Family Impact Seminars. The Hoosier Family Policy Summit brought together administrators, service providers and academics for the first time to address challenges facing Hoosier families and to work toward solutions to those challenges.

She received a bachelor degree in home economics in 1970 from Indiana University and a master’s degree in family arts in 1976 from St. Francis College in Fort Wayne. She received her doctorate in instructional research and development from Purdue in 1983. She was one of the co-founders and vice president of the National Association of Leadership Educators, and a member of the National Association of Women in Education. She also received the Sagamore of the Wabash; and in 1988, selection to the national speakers bureau of Epsilon Sigma Phi, the national extension fraternity, and also the fraternity’s Distinguished Service Award that same year.