Hoeflin, Ruth M.

Ruth M. Hoeflin was a longtime professor and Dean of Home Economics at Kansas State University. Hoeflin attended Iowa State College from 1935 to 1940 when she earned her B.S. in Child Development. From 1940 to 1942, Hoeflin was Director of the Nursery at Sherwood School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, followed by serving as Director of the Nursery School at Lanham War Nursery in Highland Park, Michigan from 1943 to 1944. At this time, while attending the University of Michigan in the summer, she also helped start two different wartime nursery schools in Highland Park. She received her Master’s degree in Parent Education from the University of Michigan in 1945. Hoeflin then worked as an Instructor from 1947 to 1950 in Home Economics at Ohio State University, where she earned her Ph.D. in Family Life in 1950. She was then promoted to Assistant Professor and remained at OSU until 1954.

In 1957, Hoeflin was hired as a professor and head of the Department of Family and Child Development at Kansas State. By 1958, she was also serving on the Kansas Family Life Association Board, as well as the Kansas Home Economics Association Executive Board, which she would serve on until 1977. In 1960, she became professor and Associate Dean of the College of Home Economics at K-State. Hoeflin also served as Dean of the College of Home Economics from 1974 to 1983.

Hoeflin was active for many years in the Kansas Home Economics Association and in the American Home Economics Association. She spoke at numerous conventions and served in many executive roles, including as chairman of AHEA from 1972 to 1973, President of AHEA from 1980 to 1982, and President of KHEA in 1975. Hoeflin was also a well-published scholar, publishing many textbooks on home economics, including “A Prospectus of Home Economics” in 1968, and dozens of research articles in home economics journals.

In 1977, Hoeflin partnered with Dr. John Chalmers, the Vice President of Academic Affairs at K-State, in the opening of a childcare center on the K-State campus. The center utilized a remodeled 100-year-old stone house located off of Manhattan Avenue. The center was officially opened for daycare in August of 1977. In 1983, the center was named the “Hoeflin Stone House Childcare Center” in her honor.

After her retirement as Dean and from teaching in 1984, Hoeflin was the director of the Fenix office from 1984 to 1988. In 1985, she published her work “History of a College: from Woman’s Course to Home Economics to Human Ecology, 1873-1988 Kansas State University.” She received the Ohio State Home Economics Alumni Association: Distinguished Alumni Award from Ohio State University in 1991, and she was active as President of the Manhattan Area Retired Teachers Association from 1992 to 1993. Hoeflin died on August 30th, 2000.

Written in February 2021 by Jarrod Kuckelman.

Creator Source: Library of Congress Name Authority File