HANCOCK CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mary Alice "Buff" Brennan, President
Mary Alice "Buff" Brennan, Ph.D., CMA, Professor Emerita, and former Chair of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Program. Her research articles on creativity in dance and the movement analysis of dance style have appeared in numerous publications. She was the 1985 National Dance Association Scholar and has twice been a Fulbright Scholar to India. During 1993-1995 she served as a member of the Dance Task Force that developed the National Standards for Dance in Education. For 25 years, she was a performer of modern dance.

Deborah Thomas, Vice-President
Deborah Thomas, PhD, ADTR, DTRL, founded Hancock Center in 1983 and served as its Executive Director through 2004. She provides dance/movement therapy to adults and teaches Alexander technique. A founding member of the American Dance Therapy Association, she taught the undergraduate Dance Therapy program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently in training to become a Jungian analyst.

Mary Thurrell, Secretary/Treasurer
Mary Thurrell is the managing director of Kanopy Dance Company.

Sharon Chaiklin, Marian Chace Foundation Representative
Sharon Chaiklin, ADTR is currently president of the Marian Chace Foundation of the American Dance Therapy Association. She worked for close to 40 years as a dance therapist in psychiatric hospitals and private practice. Teaching included the Goucher College Graduate Program in Dance/Movement Therapy, the University of Haifa, Israel and many workshops nationally and internationally such as in Argentina, Japan, Korea and Spain. She has written several articles on dance/movement therapy and is in the ADTA film The Power of Movement.

Glenis Benson, PhD
Dr. Benson is a career-long Autism Spectrum Disorders Consultant.  She began teaching children with ASD in the Fall of 1977 at the Edmonton School for Autistic Children. Click here for Dr. Benson's website.

Gail Coover, PhD
Gail Coover, PhD, is an Associate Researcher for the Delta Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  She is the owner of Coover Consulting, which specializes in organization communication, diversity development and program evaluation.  Gail is also a yoga instructor at the Monkey Bar Gymnasium and is involved with contact improvisational dance with the Red Herrings and Cycropia Aerial Dance Group.  Gail received her PhD in 1995 in Communication Theory and Research from the University of Southern California.

Kate Corby
Kate Corby is a contemporary choreograhper, educator and performer and currently an assistant professor of dance at the UW-Madison. Her choreography has been seen in New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Illinois, Georgia, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan and Hungary, where she carried out choreographic research as a Fulbright Fellow in 2006. In recent years Kate has been presenting work in Chicago with the LIVE ANIMALS Performance Collective and the Madison-based company Kate Corby & Dancers. She has served on the faculties of Beloit College, the Dance Center of Columbia College, and the Pedagogy Dept. of the Hungarian Dance Academy.

Susan Custer
Susan Custer received her Bachelor of Science in Dance from the UW-Madison in 1997. Since 1997, Susan has owned and operated a small business known as "Dancing With Care" providing creative movement, contemporary / cultural and traditional Ballet dance lessons for children. Her business is located primarily at Preschool of the Arts in Madison, WI. In her ten years of success with"Dancing With Care," Susan has maintained a Full Scholarship program providing dance lessons to select children who show desire, determination and financial need. In 2007, while battling Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (cancer), Susan provided volunteer services as a teaching assistant to Ann Wingate and the Hancock Center within the therapy and prevention program at Lincoln Elementary. In July, 2008 she was deemed "In remission." Susan has since started as an Associate Degree Nursing student at Madison Area Technical College with an expected 2010 graduation. Susan is currently employed as an Emergency Services Technician at St. Mary's Hospital and continues to teach ballet at Preschool of the Arts.

Laurie Frank
Laurie Frank, Owner of GOAL Consulting, is a former public school teacher who specializes in experiential education. She is a published author and works with schools and non-profits in the areas of community building, school climate, asset development, strategic planning, and collaborative leadership.

Coyla Rankin
Coyla Rankin obtained a Master of Science in Educational Psychology from UW-Madison, and is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist. She has worked as a school psychologist for the Madison Metropolitan School District since 1976.

Dr. Mary Ann Roberton, Professor Emerita
Dr. Roberton was the director of the School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio from 1992-1999. She was also a UW-Madison professor in P.E. and Dance from 1975-1991. She specializes in Motor Development and has published several works dealing with developmental sequences in children's movement. We were greatly honored when Dr. Roberton did a research study in 2007 on the "Efficacy of Dance/Movement Therapy: A Review of Literature" for Hancock Center.

Ex Officio

Rena Kornblum
Rena Kornblum, MCAT, ADTR, DTRL, is the Executive Director of Hancock Center. She coordinates children's outreach programming and leads individual, group, and family dance/movement therapy sessions in schools, at Hancock Center, and at other agencies. Her book, Disarming the Playground: Violence Prevention through Movement, describes the in-school violence prevention curriculum she developed at Hancock Center and which is being replicated in schools across the country. Rena earned her M.A. at Hahnemann University.

Dori Regnier Weigel
Dori Regnier Weigel, BA, is the Associate Director of Hancock Center. She coordinates the administrative and financial management of the Center. She received her degree in Business Administration from Lakeland College.