2026 marks 75 years since the founding of the academic successor to our current programs in Marriage and Family Therapy and Human Development and Family Science.

Beginning in 1951, students could follow graduate tracks in Marital and Family Counseling, Family Life Education, and Child Development. For three quarters of a century, our faculty and students have believed that science and education can improve family life, child development, and society as a whole. Today, as our 75th Anniversary year draws to a close, I wanted to look back and share some of the highlights from of my second year as Chair, and the 75th year of Human Development and Family Science at FSU.

• HDFS welcomed a total of ten new doctoral students; awarding four $10,000 McAllister recruitment fellowships and six $5,000 scholarships thanks to HDFS supporters.
• HDFS held our first “Family Reunion” for students, faculty, alumni and retired faculty to connect during Homecoming at the Center for Couples and Family Therapy in honor of our 75th Anniversary.
• FSU served as a Major Sponsor for the Certified Family Life Educator (CFLE) reception at the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) Annual Conference in Baltimore, MD.
• 50 donors helped HDFS doubled our goal during FSU’s Great Give, helping to lead Anne’s College to the best ever donor turnout, and securing $10,000 in donor challenge gifts.
• Frances MacVicar was selected as the recipient of the 2026 Anderson-Darling Family Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student.
• Yinan Li competed in the FSU 3-Minute Thesis competition with her project, “A Pilot Group-Based Attachment-Informed Intervention for College Students”.
• Undergraduate Sydney Wald shared her research about ChatGPT use and its relation to reassurance seeking behavior and clinical symptoms at the ACC’s annual Meeting of the Minds.
• The FSU Board of Trustees will vote to approve new Masters and Specialists programs to train masters-level clinicians as licensed MFTs and FSU is prepared to fill this need and help provide healthier relationships and stronger families.  

At the start of the year, we issued a challenge to our community to help us reach 75 for 75! Over our history, despite generous scholarship donations from alumni and friends, the Department had not established a general endowment capable of sustaining efforts to build the HDFS community by hosting events at NCFR or even celebrating a Family Reunion. So, we set a fundraising goal for this endowment of “$75,000 to mark 75 years!”