Alumna Engel Named to First Hilton Chair by Michelle Johnson Allison Engel ('73) was named to the first Dean Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Chair in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences in a ceremony held Aug. 17. Engel will hold the chair this academic year and will focus on outreach -- spreading research results and new knowledge beyond the campus. Engel graduated with honors from Iowa State in 1973, receiving the B.A. in home economics journalism. She has a strong media background and has won several journalism awards, including a Knight Journalism Fellowship from Stanford University. She also was selected as a national spokesperson for AT&T, touring 96 U.S. cities, and co-authored Food Finds: America's Best Local Foods and the People Who Produce Them, for HarperCollins, with her twin sister, Margaret Engel. "Allison Engel is nationally recognized for her work as a journalist," said Dean Beverly Crabtree. "We are thrilled to have a person of Allison's caliber join our faculty as the first Hilton Chair." The Hilton Chair is endowed through a $1.3 million gift from the estate of Helen LeBaron Hilton. It is the largest endowed chair in Iowa State's history. Hilton was dean of the College of Home Economics (now Family and Consumer Sciences) from 1952 to 1975. Appointed by President Eisenhower, Hilton served on the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth. She also served on a national panel on vocational education during the Kennedy Administration. Hilton was the first woman elected to the Ames City Council and was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1983. She died in 1993. "Dean Hilton was recognized worldwide as a leader in the home economics profession," Crabtree said. "She made many significant and lasting contributions to our college, the university and the nation. Now, because of this generous bequest, her legacy will continue." _____ contact: Michelle Johnson, News Service, (515) 294-8986 updated: 8-17-95