Keywords

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  • Birthdate: April 16, 1948

  • Birthplace: La Crosse, WI

  • Education

    B.A.

    University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, Psychology, 1970

    M.A.

    University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Counseling and Guidance, 1971

    Ph.D.

    Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, School Psychology, 1976

Experience

1988–Present

Professor, Psychology Department

 

Pace University-New York City

 

(Director, PSYD and MSED Programs;

 

Associate Chair, Psychology Department)

1982–1988

Associate Professor, School of Education

 

University of Colorado at Denver

 

Denver, Colorado

 

(Coordinator, School Psychology Program)

1983–1984

Acting Dean, School of Education

 

University of Colorado at Denver

 

Denver, Colorado

1980–1982

Assistant Professor, School of Education

 

University of Colorado at Denver

 

Denver, Colorado

1976–1980

Assistant Professor, Department of Educational

 

Psychology and Statistics, State University of

 

New York at Albany, Albany, New York

1976

Instructor in Educational Psychology

 

Indiana University-Purdue University

 

Indianapolis, Indiana

1975–1976

School Psychologist, Bartholomew Consolidated

 

School Corporation, Columbus, Indiana

 

(Doctoral internship)

1975–1976

School Psychologist, Decatur County Schools,

 

Greensburg, Indiana (Doctoral internship)

1975–1976

School Psychologist, Division of Pupil Personnel

 

Services, State Education Department,

 

Indianapolis, Indiana (Doctoral Internship)

1974–1975

Associate Instructor in Educational Psychology,

 

Department of Educational Psychology,

 

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

1973–1974

Graduate Assistant in Educational Psychology,

 

Department of Educational Psychology,

 

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

1973–1974

Psychometrist, Stonebelt School, Bloomington, Indiana

1971–1972

Psychologist, Neurology Department, University of

 

New Mexico Medical School, Albuquerque,

 

New Mexico

1970–1971

Substitute teacher, Albuquerque Public Schools

 

Albuquerque, New Mexico

My Journey

My journey in psychology likely started in childhood, although of course, I didn’t know it at the time. I especially recall going to the public library when a child (probably about 9–10 years old) and gravitating toward the biography section. There were wonderful stories about people (virtually all men) doing extraordinary things. My world at that time was mostly confined to Wisconsin, so it was amazing to learn of conquests, explorations, and respected good deeds (e.g., Vasco de Gama, Marco Polo, Betsy Ross, George Washington).

Growing up, I was raised on my family’s midwestern values and religious beliefs (First Congregational Church), including a traditional perspective on the roles of men and women. As was common during the Post-World War II (WWII) era, my mother stayed at home and raised three children, while my father worked. My father, as a teenager, had been an officer in the United States Air Force during WWII, flying missions over Germany and France, dropping bombs, and luckily escaping many near life-ending perils. At times, talk around the family dinner table would veer in that direction (WWII), with my father emphatically articulating, and at the same time denouncing, the despicable things that Hitler and the Nazis did and were planning to do, and expressing compassion, regard, and respect for Jews and others who were the focus of Nazi persecution. The moral issues were striking and imperative, with never a doubt expressed about doing the right thing as part of the war effort and, by extension, in all of life.

On the heels of coming back from WWII, my father had married my mother, entered the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse (UW-L), and together, with me on the way, lived in a Quanset hut. The hut was standard issue, made of corrugated steel widely manufactured across the country, and stood in a line with many, many others not far from the UW-L campus. My father majored in history and biology, gravitating toward the field of education. He first worked as a teacher, then elementary school principal, and for a short period of time, a junior high school principal (for much of this time working in the summer months on a master’s degree in education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison). He moved from the public school arena to UW-L as a university administrator, first as an Assistant Dean, then Dean of Students, and, briefly, Vice Chancellor for student services (again working in the summers, but this time on a doctoral degree in pupil personnel services at the University of Northern Colorado). Most of the talk around the dinner table at this time followed the events of everyone’s day and, in addition, involved discussions centered mainly on education, teachers, and curriculum, the needs of individual students, and, in addition, the deeds and misdeeds of others. These were wide-ranging conversations about, yes, education, educational systems (local and state levels, regulations, funding), and related issues, but more importantly (looking back), taking care of others, the strengths and foibles of individuals and families, and moral issues, nuances, and, yes, imperatives.

During those familial conversational opportunities, I started becoming aware and appreciative of the enormity of issues surrounding children’s educational and mental health needs. Let me stand back for a moment to briefly describe my father as a person, as well as the geographical environment I grew up in. To my mind, my father was smart, solid, and wise, relentlessly optimistic, and oh so kind. To me, he was like Walter Cronkite in kindheartedness, steadiness, temperament, and thoughtfulness, and his compassion for and commitment to others inspires me as much today as it did when I was young. Not as exciting was the community and locale where I grew up, almost exclusively Caucasian, in the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin (still about 50,000 residents, even after all of these years) positioned at the confluence of the Black, La Crosse, and Mississippi Rivers, nestled firmly in the mid-west. As I recall, the only people of color I saw growing up (until adolescence) were those from Africa, mostly Kenyan who, for some reason unbeknownst to me, were pursuing higher education at UW-L. As my father was the Dean of Students, these students were not infrequently guests in our home for dinner and other social events.

My upbringing, those dinner time talks, the high regard for my father, and his moral values, in conjunction with my strong interest in the lives of others (I still love to read biographies), set me on the path toward the field of psychology. The journey was not necessarily a smooth one in that I never anticipated going to the University of Colorado at Boulder (although that was my dream from the time I was 12 years old when my family traveled to Colorado and I saw Boulder and the University for the first time). As a child, I was frequently ill with asthma, and there was probably not a worse physical environment to grow up in than Wisconsin on the banks of the Mississippi River, hot and ridiculously humid in the summer and snowy and frigid cold in the winter. Due to my asthmatic condition, my parents found a way for me to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder; this was a blessing not only for my health but of course my education and intellectual growth, as well as in many unforetold ways.

The University of Colorado was and is well-known for its Psychology Department, and, when declaring a major, psychology was my decided choice (after a brief thought of the aesthetics of architecture). The 4 years in Boulder were complex, rich, and unbelievable; how could they not be? My education was first rate, and I learned very much broadly (such as geography, literature, and philosophy) and psychology in-depth (at least at an undergraduate level). Primarily experimentally driven, the University of Colorado’s psychology curriculum included, for example, exceptional developmental coursework (especially Professor Ted Volsky), history and systems of psychology (noteworthy Professor Michael Wertheimer), learning theory, psychometrics, and research. In addition, what can you say about the myriad dynamics in the mid-late 1960s in terms of cultural, emotional, political, and social justice issues, to name just a few? The Vietnam War was raging; young men were dying by the thousands; body bag count was a daily phenomenon, and Napalm and Agent Orange were part of an outrageous scene of pain and suffering. Almost all of the discussion (at least in my circle) was focused on the lack of justification for the war, the ensuing moral depravity on so many levels, and, ultimately, how not to be part of this atrocity. Most young men, including my husband-to-be, worked to either secure conscientious objector status (reputedly nearly impossible to obtain) or 4-F status (the medical reason for rejection). The third alternative was to make plans to move to Canada. Among many tragic losses, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered; massive war protests grew across the country, and peace issues were raised everywhere.

My husband did receive 4-F status, thanks to an understanding physician, and in 1970 we married and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to pursue master’s degrees at the University of New Mexico (UNM), his in English and mine in Counseling and Guidance. Arriving in Albuquerque in August, shortly after a war protest demonstration and ugly confrontation in May 1970 (11 students and journalists were bayonetted by the NM National Guard), bloodstains were still visible outside the UNM Student Union building. My master’s program was alive with coursework and experiences related to psychology at the time, including, for instance, encounter groups, existential and humanistic psychology, Jung, transcendental meditation, and, relevant to school psychology, counseling and psychotherapeutic work with children. This part of my education differed significantly from my undergraduate preparation at the University of Colorado at Boulder, incorporating much more experiential, field-based, interpersonal work than the rigorous, heavily science-based training in Colorado.

Part of my master’s degree work included an extensive practicum at the Convulsive Disorder Unit (CDU) in the Neurology Department at the UNM Health Sciences Center. The CDU, called the UNM Epilepsy Center now, represented a multidisciplinary approach, although neurologically oriented, focused on the needs of individuals with a wide range of convulsive disorders (developed and funded initially as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society initiatives). My experiences at the CDU, first as a student, and subsequently, as their psychologist (this was a NM State employment category which required a graduate, but not necessarily a doctoral degree), were directed mostly toward children, adolescents, and young adults. Some veterans significantly brain injured and neurologically impaired, were starting to return from the Vietnam War; one young man who was in his early 20s still comes to mind. He had lost nearly half of his brain, was being treated prophylactically for seizures, and, although highly verbally skilled and largely intact in that area, had extraordinary deficits in nearly all perceptual and other functions as measured at the time.

Being young, in my early 20s, I was hardly emotionally, professionally, or otherwise equipped or prepared for this work. Nevertheless, being in a medically oriented environment, working with children, parents, educators, and other professionals, which was incredibly challenging yet abundant in experiences, opened my eyes to the vastness of human needs and the potential for constructive, good, and productive action, but also the destructiveness associated with, to put it mildly, poor judgment and thought that played out in the world at large. Certainly, tears were a poor and weak response to what unanticipated individual and family needs presented themselves in this situation.

In other words, the work at the CDU, particularly with other professionals and the amazing people we served, provided invaluable experience in assessment, consultation with parents and schools, intervention in the form of counseling and psychotherapy, and working to meet the multifaceted needs of youth and their families in whatever way appropriate and possible. From these experiences, the seeds of working with children in school settings were planted. As an anecdote, at that time (the early 1970s, prior to the passage of national legislation, PL 93-380 and PL 94-142, assuring all children of free, appropriate education), children were routinely denied an education if school districts such as Albuquerque, but also virtually anywhere else across the country, felt they did not have programs and resources for those with special needs.

In this regard, I recall an especially heartbreaking experience of a young child with seizures and her family. The child had had a typical developmental history up to the time of an unfortunate tragic accident, and subsequently had traumatic brain injury accompanied by impairments across all developmental domains. When school-aged, the child’s mother contacted the school district for services for her child. Despite her entreaties, the child was denied any educational services, with the admonition that they simply had no services available to educate her. As a result, the child’s parents banded together with others who had children with special needs, hobbled together space, secured whatever materials they could, and hired a teacher (with some unspecified training). To me, beyond the significant needs of the child and her family, this represented yet another example of the crying need to support children and their families, whatever their circumstances, wants, or needs.

After living in Albuquerque for about 2 years, my husband and I moved to Bloomington, Indiana in 1972 where he began doctoral work in American Studies in the English Department at Indiana University (IU). Thinking it would not be difficult to secure employment with a master’s degree in counseling, I focused on getting a job. Probably decompressing from my position at the CDU, as well the related experiences at UNM, I was not necessarily thinking of doctoral work for myself. After being denied (thankfully as it turns out) a position doing assessments for individuals following car accidents (clearly stated because I was a woman and what would the wives of men working on this project think?), I took a job as a research administrator at the Lilly Library, rare books—nearly mausoleum-like, but an absolutely extraordinary facility at IU.

In this position, I learned a tremendous amount about the wonder of exquisite, old, unique, rare books, and the technical, sometimes tedious steps in verifying authenticity and provenance. There were multiple forms of documentation requiring hours of precise step by step thought, and all of the related activities involved in levels of handling, referencing, and working with often one of a kind astonishing, stunning, and thought-provoking materials. Although fascinating, meticulously scholarly, and exhilarating in its own way, the work was mostly solitary, and it didn’t take long before I was exploring doctoral programs in psychology. Examining the options, I quickly discovered that IU had one of the early and original combined psychology programs (clinical and school) which had recently separated into the two distinct programs of clinical and school psychology. There was no question, with my background, education, and professional experiences, that I was tremendously attracted to their doctoral school psychology program.

Admitted to the IU School of Education’s School/Educational Psychology program, I began shortly thereafter. The coursework was academically rigorous, and incorporated field experiences in school and community settings that I could not have imagined, but which were consistent with my undergraduate and graduate preparation. The curriculum and instruction in the IU program were exceptional and provided me with the footing and training to do most of the things I particularly value in school psychology to this day. While at IU, I met Ginny Harvey, a lifelong friend, colleague, confidante, and like-explorer on the road of life. If still alive, she would clearly have been a contributor to this book of women whose professional lives came to focus on school psychological services. Her contributions to school psychology were outstanding, particularly in the area of supervision. Ours was a heartfelt friendship (just speaking for myself) and I only wish we could have been geographically nearer to work more closely over time. We did, however, go through the doctoral program together, taught undergraduate educational psychology courses, and shared many good times.

Within the IU Ph.D. in School Psychology program, following the coursework, field experiences, and related comprehensive examinations, there was a required 1-year doctoral internship. This was southern Indiana, and opportunities of this sort were relatively scant. Nevertheless, I was offered and accepted an internship that was halftime with the Columbus, Indiana School District and halftime with the Indiana Department of Education in Indianapolis (to work with their two Indiana State school psychology consultants). These two internship experiences provided strikingly different views of school psychology, one granular, direct service oriented, close to children, educators, and parents, and the other, a much broader, wide-lens perspective (state and national) to view the systematic development of school psychological service training and the development and implementation of services for all children nationwide.

During my internship year, my doctoral advisor (Professor Clinton Chase, a warm and wonderful person, incredibly skilled in psychometrics, and given to punning at every opportunity) encouraged me to apply for Assistant Professorship opportunities in school psychology. There were three positive responses to those applications and, after interviewing at the State University of New York (SUNY)–Albany, I accepted a position there. The SUNY–Albany school psychology program at that time (1976) was a non-doctoral program jointly administered (out of the Provost’s Office if I recall correctly) by the Department of Psychology and the School of Education’s Educational Psychology Department; so the program was more or less integrated, bringing together aspects of clinical and school psychology.

This was a wonderful time in academia—a chance to participate in and have some influence on the whole field of school psychology in terms of, for instance, participation in professional school psychology organizations (Division 16 of APA; NASP), research and writing, with the bottom line of contributing to psychological services developed, researched, and made available to children, educators, and parents. While at SUNY–Albany (1976–1980), I wrote the PSYD in School Psychology program proposal that was (surely in some revised form) ultimately accepted by the New York State Education Department (NYSED); I also became Editor of the NASP Communique’, and, at the same time, became credentialed as a NYS-certified school psychologist as well as a NYS-licensed psychologist.

Although my academic life was great (especially working with SUNY–Albany colleagues like Jack Rosenbach, and also Dick Clark and Jim Keuthe), I now had a baby, as well as a husband who was unhappy to be in Albany. As a result, in 1980 I accepted a position at the University of Colorado at Denver (UCD), although the position was in educational and not school psychology. While there (1980–1988), I quickly developed a proposal to provide non-doctoral school psychology training that was swiftly supported by the faculty and University and subsequently approved by the Colorado State Education Department. One of the best parts of being a professor in the School of Education at UCD was the opportunity to work with Anne Widerstrom (an early childhood special educator) as well as Curt Dudley-Marling (language and reading specialist) on research and writing.

The time in Denver afforded an opportunity to reflect on school psychology, children’s needs, my training, and what might be missing. For myself, trained as a K–12 school psychologist, one obvious gap was attending to, considering, and even recognizing the needs of young children and their families. For this, there was no training at that time in school psychology. Learning from Anne Widerstrom (and sharing an office with her), but also reading extensively in infant and early childhood psychology, attending lively meetings with other early childhood professionals in Denver, I became somewhat prepared to conceptualize school psychological services for infants and young children.

Together Anne and I submitted, among many projects, a successful 3-year grant (1985–1988) application to the U.S. Department of Education for the development of graduate multidisciplinary training (including early childhood special education, nursing, and school psychology trainees) to meet the needs of young children with special needs. I believe that this was the first federally funded effort to train school psychologists in the needs of young children and their families.

In addition, Anne and I wrote (with Susan Sandall) At-Risk and Handicapped Newborns and Infants: Development, Assessment, and Intervention, the first text focused on meeting the needs of at-risk and handicapped infants and young children from a multidisciplinary perspective. Published by Prentice Hall in 1991, the book provided extensive material to support and inform work from not only a multidisciplinary, but also an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary framework, to meet the needs of very young vulnerable infants, young children, their parents, and families. Although Colorado did not have a large population (about three million people at that time as I recall), there was, nonetheless, a rich professional environment for working with young children and collaborating with others so inclined. Anne, others, and I wrote and did research, and there were frequent collaborative meetings with those from the UC Medical Center, UCD, practitioners from many disciplines, and members from a variety of related professional organizations.

Although the sky was blue with big puffy Coloradan clouds, other options presented themselves. In 1987, I received a call from Florence Denmark (formerly President of APA with a string of other accolades to her name), who had recently become the Chair of the Psychology Department at Pace University–New York City and Leonard Bart, Director of Field Training for the Pace’s PSYD in School–Community Psychology program (the first PSYD program approved by the New York State Board of Regents). Trying to shepherd the Pace University School-Community PSYD program toward accreditation by the American Psychological Association (APA) was proving difficult, and they were looking for a Program Director with a national presence in school psychology and wondered if I might be interested. By this time, I had two children, as well as a husband very happy to stay in Colorado forever. However, since I was already scheduled to present a paper at the National Zero-to-Three conference in Washington, DC that December, I accepted the invitation to travel to NYC and, after the conference, visit the program.

I was impressed with the potential of the doctoral training program and the possibilities of working with an even broader array of professionals who provided services in a wide swath of community mental health, hospital, and school settings. This took many more than a few discussions with my husband, but I went back to NYC a few months later, in February 1988, to take another look at the University. After a considerable amount of time weighing the offer, I accepted the position as a full professor with tenure. Tenure, in particular, was a nonnegotiable aspect of the contract from my point of view. Not only was my family moving 2000 miles from Colorado to New York, but being the first Program Director was likely to be challenging and complicated (and it was). A lack of job security was not at all advisable at this point in my career and life.

The move proved to be logistically intricate and, consequently, I first served as a consultant to the PSYD program in the Fall of 1988, and then officially began as a tenured professor on January 1, 1989. During this period of time, 1988–1989, there was considerable work that needed to be done on the PSYD program, especially to assure consistency with national training standards. On a good day this would not be easy, but imagine what it was like to be a woman, perceived as an “outsider,” joining an NYC-centric faculty with lots of old White males who nearly to a person embraced a singularly focused commitment to a psychoanalytic or psychodynamic stance. Despite the challenges, drawbacks, and potential difficulties, the move was made, the PSYD program was accredited, and my NYC life began.

Along with the accreditation issues that consumed most of my early time at Pace was the unanticipated (on my part) Doctoral Evaluation Project , a New York State Education Department (NYSED) initiative that had been evaluating the quality of all doctoral degree programs (e.g., Biology, English, History) across the State beginning in 1973. The purpose of that NYSED effort was to prune doctoral programs in all areas of study, in both private and public institutions of higher education, to assure that only those with quality curriculum and instruction would be considered eligible to continue to offer the doctoral degree. When the NYSED took on the field of psychology in the mid-late 1980s, the endeavor took more than 3 years and included the closing down of programs not adequately funded, insufficiently staffed, or deemed of poor quality.

The Pace PSYD in School–Community psychology had been placed in the middle of three categories and had to demonstrate quality in terms of curriculum, funding, and staffing. The curriculum and funding were easy since we had just been accredited by APA; the staffing, however, was another matter. When it came down to it, the Psychology Committee of the Doctoral Evaluation Project (under the direction of Judy Hall, then Secretary of the NYS Board of Psychology) determined that the PSYD program needed to hire a full-time faculty person specifically skilled in psychometric theory and practice, school psychology, and statistics. It was not easy but said person was found and hired, and this appointment cleared that particular hurdle.

Once the accreditation and NYSED disposition were successfully accomplished, my research, writing, and professional activities returned to infant and early childhood psychology. In 1997, I organized an exploratory meeting of those interested in early childhood psychology at Pace University-NYC. About 25 professionals attended and the New York Association of Early Childhood and Infant Psychology (NYAECIP) was born. This was an exciting time in which early childhood professionals from not just psychology, but also areas such as bilingual education and early childhood education, came together professionally. Conferences were held, and there were trainings on new and/or revised assessment materials, and a striking interest in the early childhood needs of bilingual children and families emerged. Along the way, the organization changed its name to the Association of Early Childhood and Infant Psychology (AECIP) and began to publish a journal, the Journal of Early Childhood and Infant Psychology (JECIP). As the founding member of NYAECIP , its first President, and first editor of JECIP, these activities provided an enriching set of professional experiences. Unfortunately, the AECIP organization no longer exists. However, the JECIP journal continues to be published under a changed name as Perspectives on Early Childhood Psychology and Education (PECPE). Vinny Alfonso was the champion who carried JECIP forward under its new name.

There have been many, many exciting professional experiences over time since moving to NYC. Most, but not all, would come either under the headings of research and writing, professional travel and conference experiences, and the meeting of incredible professionals and colleagues. In terms of research and writing, I would say that my work that has contributed the most to school psychology has been in the area of services to infants, toddlers, young children, and their families, as well as, significantly, to the development of parenting theory (the Parent Development Theory (PDT) ), psychometric instruments to assess parenting behaviors and thoughts (Parent Behavior Importance Questionnaire–Third Edition (PBIQ–3) ), and the recent development of an evidence-based parent education program, the Working With Parents Manual (WWPM) . The early childhood work, which flows easily into the realm of parenting, is significant to me in terms of my personal professional goals, and I hope that this work contributes greatly to the field by assisting professionals and parents to work together to provide an optimum environment for young as well as older children to grow and develop in a healthy manner.

In addition to presenting my work, which is inevitably tied to that of my graduate students and my dear colleagues, at conferences and professional venues, I have been invited to speak at many professional events. Most of the presentations have been made at professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association (APA), National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), and the New York Academy of Sciences, but others have occurred outside of the United States in places like Borneo, England, India, Portugal, and Slovakia.

One of the most incredible experiences has been leading three People-to-People delegations , from the earliest one to South Africa, one to China, and then one to Russia. These were amazing occurrences dedicated to help develop close collegial exchanges across national borders and ultimately support thoughtful and considerate interactions, with the ultimate goal of promoting peace on earth. Many anecdotes might be shared, but the overarching view of these experiences would be that there are skilled and thoughtful professionals around the globe who share a common theme of care and concern for all children and making the world a better place for everyone.

During my time at Pace University, from 1989 to the present, the PSYD program has been continuously accredited by the APA, first as a School Psychology program (1989–2000) and from then on as a Combined–Integrated (School/Clinical) program (2000–present). Pace continues to afford me many opportunities to grow and think about creative ways to meet the needs of children. I am thankful for the wonderful students and the dedicated work of many faculty members and, particularly, the current Chairperson, Sonia Suchday for the support offered to me. Beginning with the 2020–2021 school year, I will be stepping out of my role as the PSYD Program Director but will continue as a full-time faculty member to work on two significant research and writing projects, as well as continue to lead the Pace University Parent Child Institute (PCI).

I would be remiss not to reflect on the many individuals, professionals, and students with whom I have worked over time. There are so many who have taught me so much and I have been the happy beneficiary of, variously, their friendship, kind wishes, professionalism, support, and thoughts. To name just a few, in no particular order (and my apologies to those not specifically mentioned), professional colleagues who have been particularly meaningful in my journey include Vinny Alfonso, Leonard Bart, Clint Chase, Harriet Cobb, Florence Denmark, Susan Eklund, Abigail Harris, Curt Dudley-Marling, Marian Fish, Gilbert Foley, Abe Givner, Abigail Harris, Ginny Harvey, Steve Pfeiffer, Ron Reeve, Jack Rosenbach, Florence Rubinson, Mark Sossin, Sonia Suchday, and Anne Widerstrom. Students, many now colleagues, include Renee Krochek, as well as Shagufta Asar, Renana Nerwen, and Taoxin Zeng, but there are so very many more. And, of course, my family, especially my daughters, Melissa and Meredith, have been a never-ending source of joy, love, reflection, and warmth.

Most particularly, in my career, my closest colleague and dear friend was Ginny Harvey (who met an untimely death a few years ago at the age of 66). We were graduate students together at IU, shared common interests, and could talk for hours on end whenever. There has hardly been a colleague/friend who was so bright, positive, emotionally giving, and warm.

The travel opportunities have been fabulous, both nationally and internationally. I have traveled throughout the United States for conferences that are local, state, regional, and national, in many locales such as, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. I have also had opportunities to travel to International conferences, such as the International School Psychology Association (ISPA) (e.g., Slovakia and Portugal) and the International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (ICCAP) (England and Borneo). Accreditation visits also provided an excellent way to grow professionally and learn about program development activities in many, relatively diverse Universities (for instance, in Canada at McGill, as well as Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, and Oregon).

Sources of influence in my professional career have included working with graduate students, which has been, and still is, a constant daily joy. Nearly to a person, the graduate students bring a commitment to working with children, depth of knowledge, freshness, and wonder that I am continuously in awe of. They are a fount of inspiration and remind me of the communal interest we share in wanting to make lives better and enrich the world as a whole.

Although my developmental course changed over time, my personal goals have not: to help children in whatever way I can. This is an abiding concern and interest and has not really changed or wavered over time. If I were to look back on and characterize the developmental course during my career, however, I would point to several chronological markers and related themes. Within these markers, my family background, experiences as a child, graduate as well as undergraduate education, and personal characteristics (probably trying but not always successfully emulating my father) have certainly framed the foundation of my professional career.

More specifically, however, I would point to my doctoral education and post-education experiences to clarify my professional life and delineate to some extent my growth over time. My professional goals always involved working with children, which initially I thought of and regarded as the direct provision of psychological services (i.e., the magical therapy room). Susan Eklund, director of the School Psychology program at IU, exuded excitement for school psychology, and at any opportunity enthusiastically emphasized the array of settings and delivery of direct and indirect services to meet children’s needs. This was the point at which I considered whether indirect services in the form of training other school psychologists might be the avenue for me. Could higher education be a better place to serve children by training those who would then be providing psychological services? Fortunately, I have had three distinct opportunities (SUNY–Albany, UCD, and Pace University-NYC) to do just that for more than 40 years. If serving as a role model, embracing evidence-based practice at every turn, and contributing to the research and scholarship in the field are any indicators, I hope I have assisted in bettering the lives of children and improving their growth and development (hopefully at many junctures and in many ways).

The arc of my professional life, from SUNY–Albany, to UCD, to Pace University–NYC, along with more than three decades of combined private practice and school psychological services experience, have enriched me and provided much in the way of professional growth. Trained as a K–12 school psychologist in the 1970s, the field seemed more constrained than what I had personally envisioned. One of the most striking needs from my point of view (undoubtedly spurred to some extent by sharing an office with Anne Widerstrom, an exceptional early childhood special educator, at UCD) was working with infants and young children. Obviously, before even setting foot in kindergarten, children generally have 5 years at home with one or more parents, go to nursery or preschool, or were with a babysitter. A lot happens in that 5-year period of time, with parents usually providing the bulk of fundamental learning and social-emotional experiences. In other words, there was obviously a place at the table for school psychologists to assist in meeting the needs of children of much younger than kindergarten age.

Working with Anne Widerstrom was especially eye-opening in the sense of the myriad of services for young children, especially those who were at-risk or handicapped (the term used at the time). We worked closely together (research and writing), writing the first federal grant for an integrated training model for meeting the needs of at-risk and handicapped infants and young children. The grant was funded for 3 years and provided training opportunities from both the UCD School of Education and the University of Colorado Medical School. I learned so much from working with Anne and such an auspicious group of colleagues from the educational, medical, and special education fields.

While writing my chapters for the At-Risk and Handicapped book, I was not only struck by the scope and substance of the knowledge but especially the need and potential significance of sharing this material with parents in a meaningful way (by bettering their parenting practices). Clearly, parents, although they always play an important role in children’s lives, are especially influential in those infant and early childhood years. Imagine the potential for positively influencing children’s lives in such a meaningful way. Such began my journey into bringing information, knowledge, sensitivity, and all related matters to working with parents. The conduit for this work has been the Parent Development Theory (PDT) , The Parent Behavior Importance Questionnaire–Third Revision (PBIQ–3) , and, most recently, the Working With Parents Manual (WWPM) .

Shortly after the grant and book writing (although not because of it) in Colorado, I was contacted to consider the Program Director position at Pace. Once in New York, I looked for other infant and early childhood psychologists to collaborate with and began to conceptualize a book for parents on the needs of young children. Conceptualization was difficult, since I was immediately stuck with the conundrum of how to meaningfully frame the developmental information, knowledge, and insights (from At-Risk and Handicapped Infants) for parents. In other words, what were parents potentially going to do differently as a result of this book? A summer was spent in the Columbia University Psychology Library (rich in psychology and related resources) trying to find a meaningful avenue to bring this important developmental information to parents. What I thought I needed was a parenting framework, model, or theory to utilize to engage and work with parents. Although there was research on parents, especially Diana Baumrind’s work on parenting styles, and parenting stages (Ellen Galinsky), there wasn’t much I could identify as a theoretical backdrop to speak in a meaningful way with parents. Thus began my research on parenting which now spans three decades.

Beyond this research, trying to emulate the collegial early childhood collaborations in Colorado and finding nothing comparable in NYC, as described earlier, I invited as many early childhood psychologists as I could think of to a meeting at Pace University. About 20–25 people attended, resulting in a spirited discussion about ways in which we could share our knowledge and collaborate with one another as well as others. From this meeting was born the New York Association of Early Childhood and Infant Psychologists (NYAECIP), later to become the Association of Early Childhood and Infant Psychologists (AECIP). I served as the first President of NYAECIP and meetings were held twice a year, well attended, and proved productive in a number of ways. One offshoot was the development of the Journal of Early Childhood and Infant Psychology (JECIP), which was initially published in 2005 and now is published under the title Perspectives in Early Childhood Psychology and Education (PECPE). The journal continues, but AECIP no longer exists.

About this time, during the mid to late 2000–2010s, I was invited to lead a number of people-to-people delegations , first to South Africa and later to China and Russia. To those not familiar with people-to-people, this is an organization that was founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a peace initiative: “President Eisenhower recognized that the surest way to break cycles of fear and misunderstanding was for people to understand one another. He knew that for this to be effective, it must come not through governments, but through the hearts of people yearning for dignity, freedom and peace” (People-to-People website). The delegations included primarily psychologists with interests in the needs of young children through adolescence. These experiences significantly broadened my horizons and, among many feelings, observations, and thoughts, brought forth an awakening of the significance of professional organizations and a firm appreciation of the astonishing professional feats (for instance, credentialing and training), as well as knowledge base (ethics, research, writing) we have developed in this country as a whole.

Also, during the 2000s, I had the privilege to serve as an accreditation visitor and chairperson for several visiting teams of professionals. University school psychology programs opened their doors to reviewers and, I believe, this process has benefited our field as a whole. There are so many professionals and students across our nation who are doing superb work in building the profession and, more importantly, serving and meeting children’s educational and mental health needs.

Issues of Gender

Certainly, as a woman I have received poor and inexcusable treatment at the hands of a few individuals. On the whole, however, my career has been incredibly enriching, and I feel completely at ease with waking up every day and knowing (of at least feeling) that everything I do professionally is consistent with my professional goals.

However, gender has always been a factor in my career, from experiencing unwanted sexual advances during my graduate doctoral training, to being one of many recipients of a hostile work environment, likely to a great extent based on gender. In contrast to four decades ago, there are now explicit and relatively well-defined processes for bringing forth and addressing these issues. Decades ago there were no such protections in the training and work place, at least that I was aware of.

In my first academic position, at SUNY–Albany, I was one of three women in the department of about 24 faculty members. One of the three was much older than I, with significant statistical expertise, who was reputed to play the ponies on the university mainframe computer. Clearly something must have been up, given her exquisite White Cadillac and striking snowy white mink coat. But who’s to say? The other woman was my contemporary in terms of age, but also was not held in high repute by the other faculty (maybe I wasn’t either). In any event, there were no other female colleagues in the department, and there was no end of snarky comments made about women in general and women in higher education in particular.

One specifically frightening situation comes to mind, which occurred about mid-career. I was attending an APA or NASP conference in Toronto, and there was a fellow attending whom I had met previously during my days as an intern at the Indiana State Department of Education. He invited me to have dinner, and we made arrangements to meet in the lobby of the conference hotel. Upon meeting in the lobby, he complained that he had forgotten something in his room and wanted to retrieve it (and would I go with him). Naively, since I thought I knew him, I went to his room. He immediately turned on the television, apparently preset to play a pornographic movie, and went into the bathroom. Shocked, I got up and stood by the door entrance, and, when he came out of the bathroom, demanded that he walk me back to my hotel. (It was a freezing night, streets crowded with Toronto Maple Leaf fans, and, to be quite honest, not so safe for a woman alone on the streets.) This never happened again.

Practice of Psychological Services and Particularly School Psychology

When in graduate school at IU, I applied for and obtained my first professional credential, as an Indiana school psychometrist. This must have been in the early- to mid-1970s and, if I recall correctly, cost five dollars. Although I can’t remember specifically anything that was done with this credential, it felt good to have some sort of official part in the school psychology field . In New York, my SUNY–Albany colleagues were keen that I become an NYS-certified school psychologist as well as an NYS-licensed psychologist, which I did. The certificate was easy enough to obtain, given graduate training in school psychology, but the license required a bit more ground work. More specifically, this involved preparing for the EPPP examination, as well as a written essay portion specific to NYS. The EPPP was not a challenge, since I had been teaching a broad array of graduate courses at SUNY–Albany, but there was not much of a way to prepare for the written NYS essays, particularly as it turned out there were no questions related to developmental, educational, or school psychology . In other words, the choice of areas from which to select those for examination was limited. In the end, as I recall, I selected experimental, statistics, and research psychology as well as personality/psychopathology, and responded to the questions accordingly. I passed, and was and still am licensed in NYS, but shortly thereafter moved to Colorado.

Again, school psychology certification was not an onerous process in Colorado. Likewise, as in NYS, licensure was quite interesting. My EPPP score was accepted, but this time there was a written and oral exam. The written exam, like that in NYS, had no general areas that easily mapped onto developmental, educational, or school psychology. As I recall, the areas I selected to respond to included vocational and rehabilitation psychology (fortunately part of my coursework at UNM) and research methodology. The real challenge was the oral examination, which occurred in a narrow, dimly lit room with two people who showed not the slightest interest in me or most of my responses to a prepared list of questions. Between them was positioned a tape recorder; one of them turned it on, and I was directed to proceed. Things went as well as might be expected in this non-relational evaluative situation until there was a question on laws associated with the practice of psychology in the State of Colorado. I took a stab at it, and covered licensure regulations, child abuse reporting, and, at a decided loss for further specific information, launched into certification laws reflected in the practice of school psychology (at which point both individuals visibly flinched, which I read as “one of those school psychologists got through the process”). Regardless, I passed.

In addition to my position at UCD, I decided to put my license to use and joined another licensed professional in her family psychology practice. This was an incredibly enriching experience, working with an experienced, grounded, seasoned professional: The work (about a half day a week) included, for example, assessment, child and adolescent psychotherapy, couples counseling, and custody evaluations. I learned a great deal from these experiences and reflect on many of those seen for psychological services to this day with high regard.

After moving to New York, I looked for a like set of experiences only to find that NYC was quite parochial. Each practitioner seemed to covet their own “patients” and were not interested in sharing their practices. This may not be universally true, but this is how I experienced the situation. Lucky for me, a woman I had assisted in moving her credentials to another state contacted me about an opportunity to work limited hours in a nonpublic school setting. I accepted, and for 25 years was a psychologist for a K–grade 8 school; what a wonderful opportunity to be with children, educators, and parents on a weekly basis. Truly this was an incredible opportunity not only to participate in so many lives in a positive way, but to stay grounded in the real-life concerns of those who hold children near and dear to their hearts.

A heartbreak in my career was the death of Harriet Cobb. Harriet had graduated from the non-doctoral school psychology program at IU, but I had not known her at that time. She moved to Virginia and became a faculty member at James Madison University. At some point she had obtained a doctoral degree in, I believe, counselor education. I met her at the inaugural meeting of the Consortium of Combined and Integrated Doctoral Programs in Psychology (CCIDPIP) in the Spring of 2003. Married to Ron Reeve (University of Virginia’s combined school/clinical psychology program) at the time, we began to become close professional colleagues. We spent much time together when at professional gatherings, and worked together on a number of projects. She had recently taken over my position of representing CCIDPIP at the Council of Combined Training Councils (CCTC), when she called me late at night on a Tuesday evening. Clearly upset, she wondered if I could take her place at a meeting of the CCTC later in the week since she was having some personal problems that she needed to take care of. Assuring her that it was not a problem, and offering kind, but brief words, I proceeded on with my week.

At the CCTC meeting in the early afternoon, Cathy Grus and Susan Zlotlow entered the meeting room where perhaps some 50–60 CCTC attendees were gathered. They motioned for me to come with them and, in a private space, informed me that Harriet Cobb was missing and there was every indication that she had taken her own life. Knowing some, but certainly not a sufficient amount to appreciate the struggles she was facing, I wonder if I could have done anything differently to respond to her pain. I am still not sure how to appreciate when a close colleague is struggling, and how many others (as well as myself) might not be aware of, reach out, or reflect on what one another are experiencing. The loss of this amazing woman, colleague, and professional troubles me as do the many questions about what I might have done to help her.

Looking back at my rewarding and complicated career, would I do it again? I absolutely would do it again. School psychology is the best field imaginable to address children’s educational and mental health needs.