Roxane Offner Papers

Roxane Berta Offner was an only child of Monroe M. Offner, a chemical engineer and high school chemistry teacher, and Dorothy L. Offner, sculptor, born November 22, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York. Her home was, as she described it, “an intellectual and bohemian environment, politically left-wing,” concerned with social justice.

Offner was the valedictorian in her grade school and high school, where she was drawn to friendships with artists from Woodstock, New York, and correspondence with poet Bernard Stallard of Tennessee. She was interested in becoming a dancer and studied with Martha Graham, but was under pressure to achieve academically. She entered Oberlin College in 1947 at the age of 16, graduating in 1951 as an elected member of Phi Beta Kappa with a major in Sociology. During her first year at Oberlin she lived at Elmwood, a dormitory for women, where she developed enduring friendships. Offner also lived at the Maison Française and acted in a French play, and in other plays produced by the Oberlin Dramatic Association. She was a member of the Forum Board, which invited Paul Robeson to speak at Oberlin, but the event did not take place.

In 1948, Offner was a delegate to the Founding Convention of the New Youth Organization for the National Convention of the New Party (also known as the Progressive Party), held in Philadelphia in July, immediately after the Republican National Convention. In that capacity she was an observer of the convention that nominated former Vice President Henry A. Wallace for president and Idaho Governor Glen H. Taylor for Vice President. She also participated in Oberlin College’s Mock Convention in 1948 as a delegate for Wyoming. In 1950, Offner was selected to spend spring semester in Washington, D.C., to learn about government. During that time she did research at the National Institute of Health to produce an orientation manual for new members of the Community Services Committee for the National Advisory Council of the Public Health Service. In her senior year, Offner was elected Secretary of the College’s chapter of the NAACP and initiated a weekend student exchange program in which ten Oberlin students spent a weekend at Wilberforce College, and ten of their students came to Oberlin.

In 1951 Offner was admitted to the New York School of Social Work, where she wrote her thesis on “The Use of Dance as an Adjunct in Therapy with the Mentally Ill,” and graduated with a Master of Science in Social Work.

Through an Oberlin student Offner met her future husband Jules Brody. They married in 1953 and had three sons, Jeff, David and Jonathan Brody. They lived in Paris in 1961-62 and in Rome in 1967-68. The couple divorced in 1978, and Offner reverted to using her maiden name.

In 1953 and 1954 Offner was a children’s caseworker at the Neurological Institute of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. From 1954 to 1963 Offner served as Executive Secretary and Editor for the departments of programs, synagogue administration and social action, which she initiated at the United Synagogue of America at the Jewish Theological Seminary, also in New York. In 1969-70 Offner was a community worker at the Legal Aid Society in New Rochelle and a clinic coordinator at Planned Parenthood in White Plains, New York. From 1970 to 1973 she was a community services counselor for the Arthritis Foundation in White Plains, and from 1973 to 1978 she served as community liaison on a national spinal cord injury project for the Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University Medical Center.

For fourteen years, from 1978 to 1992, Offner was Deputy Advocate at the New York State Office of Advocate for the Disabled in New York, where she developed policy in areas including AIDS, child care, health, injury and disability prevention, housing, long term care, accessibility, building codes, and the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Offner’s last position before retirement was with Lighthouse International as Consultant on the Americans with Disabilities Act from 1992 to 2000. In 1994 she produced the ADA Accessibility Guidelines: Provisions for People with Impaired Vision.

After retirement in 2002, Offner was appointed to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Advisory Board for Westchester County, a position she held for several years. In 2006 Offner was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Columbia University School of Social Work.

Roxane Offner now resides with her husband, Harry Angelidakis, in Tuckahoe, New York.

Sources Consulted

Correspondence, 2005 to 2007, to Roland M. Baumann, College Archivist, and résumé (2005) from Roxane Offner (Offner case file).

Correspondence, October and November 2013, Roxane Offner and Anne Cuyler Salsich, Assistant Archivist (Offner case file).

Telephone conversation with Roxane Offner, 24 October 2013.

Note written by Anne Cuyler Salsich