Ann Hopkins, Bio

Ann Hopkins is a former university instructor who has spent several decades simultaneously in the academic and business worlds. During and following her graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania she taught at several colleges and universities, choosing classes of nontraditional students and emphasizing the need for communication among diverse groups. While a resident abroad for some years, first in India, then in Australia and Hong Kong, she developed a program in conversational English as a Second Language, trained volunteers in the program, taught the program herself, and tutored other students from a variety of cultural and language backgrounds, including Yugoslav, Senegalese, Indian and Indonesian. Additionally she edited articles for publication in English in local scientific journals.

As a small business owner in the US, she developed market strategies, wrote advertising, trained staff, and mounted exhibits -- all of which contributed to communication training programs she developed and taught in such companies as Champion International and Avon Corporation. These resources found their way into her speeches to corporate groups on the communication needs of the changing workplace.

She has been a psychometrist at the University of Massachusetts working with diverse student populations, both traditional and nontraditional and including those with physical and learning disabilities. She trained staff to administer tests, prepared and edited outreach materials for her department, and independently edited manuscripts, particularly in philosophy and economics. She finds inspiration in singing with a Symphony Chorus, debating issues with her two daughters, and creating her own designs for knitting projects.