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Sunny S. Hansen is a past president of the 55,000-member American
Counseling Association (ACA) and the National Career Development
Association. She has been a professor of counseling and student
personnel psychology and is the director of the BORN FREE program at
the University of Minnesota. She founded and chaired the ACES/NCDA
Commission on Preparing Counselors for Career Development in the
2lst Century for five years and is principal author of its position
paper.
A native of Albert Lea, Minnesota, Dr. Hansen
received her B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of
Minnesota. After teaching English and journalism in three different
high schools for l2 years—and spending time informally counseling
high school students as a teacher—she changed direction from English
to Counseling.
When Sunny completed her Ph.D. in counseling in
1962, she was appointed part-time counselor educator, while also
counseling students 7-12 at University High School. Most of her
professional career has been as a professor of counseling and
student personnel psychology at the University of Minnesota, where
she has specialized in career development. She created an innovative
university course on career development of women and has designed
and led numerous career development, career counseling, and career
guidance workshops. She also has been a keynote speaker at many
conferences, nationally and internationally.
Dr. Hansen has a lifelong interest in social
issues of justice and equality. Her major creative contribution is
BORN FREE, a federally funded program to expand career options for
both women and men. BORN FREE is a highly successful multimedia
training and development program for educators and parents, designed
to increase awareness of the power of gender roles in career
development and to teach participants to become agents of change for
human development. She has worked for two years on a
BORN FREE
Update which archives all the original training packets on a Web
page along with other BORN FREE products and includes some
revisions, reflections of past staff, and a new international
dimension with authors from a dozen countries writing articles about
gender roles and issues in their culture.
For more than 40 years, Dr. Hansen has written
and lectured widely in the U.S. and about 35 countries on many
aspects of counseling and career development. She also has been a
frequent national consultant to schools and colleges on many aspects
of counseling and career development. She has been a frequent
national consultant to school districts, educational agencies, and,
more recently, business and industry. Among her major works are
An Examination of of the Concepts and Definitions of Career
Education for the National Advisory Council on Career Education;
the Concepts and Definitions of Career Education for the
National Advisory Council on Career Education; “Gender and Career,”
a chapter for the National Vocational Guidance Association Decennial
Volume, Designing Careers; Career Development and Counseling of
Women; an invited UNESCO monograph, Eliminating Sex
Stereotyping in Schools; Career Development Education: A
Program Approach for Teachers and Counselors (with others); and
BORN FREE publications and videotapes on career-related gender role
stereotyping and career socialization. In 1982 she also created a
nationally disseminated television course on career development and
planning. Dr. Hansen’s major recent work, Integrative Life
Planning: Critical Tasks for Career Development and Changing Life
Patterns (ILP), was published in 1997 by Jossey-Bass and is
available through Wiley.com. She also has developed a distance
learning class on integrative career planning. Recently she has
published several articles on ILP and on multicultural counseling.
Dr. Hansen has received numerous awards and
honors in recognition of her work, including the Eminent Career
Award from the National Career Development Association in
1990 and the Distinguished Mentor Award from the Association for
Counselor Education and Supervision in 1986. In 1978 she was elected
a Fellow of the American Psychological Association for distinguished
contribution to the field of psychology. As president of the
American Association for Counseling and Development In 1989-90, her
theme was Global Visions—Celebrating Diversity, Creating Community.
In 1990 she received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the
Minnesota Association for Counseling and Development. In 1995 Dr.
Hansen was awarded the national Professional Development Award by
the American Counseling Association. In 1999 she was named the first
internal Lowell W. Hellervik/Personnel Decisions International
Distinguished Professor in Adult Career Development at the
University of Minnesota.
Since her transition out of the University of
Minnesota in 1999, Dr. Hansen has remained quite active
professionally, doing considerable writing of articles and speaking
on various aspects of career development, including her unique
approach to Integrative Life Planning. She has continued to be
active in the American Counseling Association, the National Career
Development Association, and the International Association for
Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG). She has been named a
Fellow (the highest honor awarded in several professional
associations) in the American Psychological Association (1978), the
National Career Development Association (2001), and the American
Counseling Association (2005).
In 2006 Sunny was honored as one of the top 100
graduates of the College of Education and Human Development in its
centennial year. She has continued to speak in several countries.
She regularly presents at the National Career Development
Association convention, at IAEVG, and ACA. In the spring 2007 issue
of the Journal of Counseling and Development, she was honored
with a profile interview written by colleagues and former doctoral
students entitled “An Interview with Sunny Hansen: Pioneer and
Innovator in Counseling and Career Development.” See
“Post-Retirement Transition Bio from 2000-2007” for further details.
When not involved in professional activities, Sunny spends her
time with her husband, Tor, in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, and with
her four grandchildren who range in age from 3 to 5 years. Daughter
Sonja is a business analyst/project manager at U.S. Bank, and son
Tor has been an engineer for almost 15 years at Barr Engineering.
Sunny and her husband Tor, from Norway, also spend part of the year
away from Minnesota winters in Bonita Springs, Florida. In her spare
time she enjoys writing, golfing, skiing, swimming, walking,
photography, and dancing.
Sunny Hansen, Ph.D.
December 28, 2007
White Bear Lake, Minnesota 55110
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