MINNEAPOLIS ­— The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) membership has elected Andrea Roach, Ph.D., as a new Students and New Professionals Board Representative on the NCFR Board of Directors. Dr. Roach is assistant professor of child, family, and consumer sciences at California State University, Fresno.

Dr. Roach has been a member of NCFR since 2012. She has been a member of several sections, and is the current Students and New Professionals (SNP) representative of NCFR's Feminism and Family Studies section. Dr. Roach was on the Inaugural Digital Scholarship Board of the Journal of Family Theory & Review.

“I want to be a voice for the diverse population of SNP members. My years as a high school teacher and college professor have taught me that a teacher has to establish trust with students and support trust between students to create a community. As a board member, I would espouse these principles. Maintaining open communication between members and the board is imperative for NCFR’s future. We should be connecting more often than annually at the conference. I would start by establishing a digital platform for discussions between SNP members, which would allow open communication and a sense of community.”

Dr. Roach and the other newly elected board members will assume their roles at the 2017 Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, planned for Nov. 15 – 18.

The National Council on Family Relations is the premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of nearly 3,000 family researchers, practitioners and educators. For more information on NCFR or its scholarly publications, contact NCFR at 1-888-781-9331 or visit its website at www.ncfr.org.