In memoriam: Hannelore Wass, professor emeritus, death studies pioneer, scholarship donor
Hannelore Wass, a professor emeritus in education psychology at UF’s College of Education and a prominent scholar in the field of death studies, died Friday, April 12 at age 86.
Dr. Wass was one of the college’s pioneers in bringing professional journals to the college to be edited. After joining the faculty in 1969 as a specialist in child growth and development, she soon became recognized internationally in the field of thanatology—the study of death, dying and bereavement—and became a sought-after lecturer and consultant in the United States and abroad.
She was cited in the 2006 book, “Women at the University of Florida,” which offers a history of accomplished women who have made a significant mark on the university.
Wass advocated for integrating the subjects of death, grief, suicide, as well as violence prevention and racial integration, into school curricula. In 1974, she organized a course at UF called “Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Death.” In 1977, Wass founded and brought to the college the journal, Death Education, which would later become Death Studies. In 1991, she was recognized by the International Association for Death Education and Counseling for her many contributions to the field.
Growing up in her native Germany, Wass earned her bachelor’s in education there and later earned her master’s and doctorate from the University of Michigan. As part of a cultural exchange program sponsored by the U.S. Education Department, she received a yearlong training fellowship for young German educators in 1951 to study democracy in American schools and communities. She immigrated to the United State in 1957 to teach in the Pittsfield, MA. School system, where she’d visited during her fellowship year.
Her teaching and research focus was on the broad spectrum of human development, from childhood and adolescence to adulthood, aging, death and grief.
Wass is the namesake of the College of Education’s Dr. Hannelore Wass Endowed Scholarship. She and her late husband, Harry H. Sisler, established the endowment in 2004 for deserving graduate students in education.
Details of her funeral service had not been announced at this writing. You can watch for her funeral announcement, read her complete obituary and express condolences on the website of Forest Meadows Funeral Homes in Gainesville: http://forestmeadowsfh.com/obituaries/hannelore-wass/.
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