Alumni and student profiles

Doug Fuchs
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY 
Degrees: 
Johns Hopkins University: B.A., psychology, 1971
University of Pennsylvania: M.S., education, 1973
University of Minnesota: Ph.D., educational psychology, 1978
Current occupation: Professor of special education, Vanderbilt University, TN and co-director, Institute of Learning and Accommodation, John F. Kennedy Center for Human Development

Lynn Fuchs
Hometown: Freehold, NJ
Degrees: 
Johns Hopkins University: B.A., humanities, 1972
University of Pennsylvania: M.S., education, 1973
University of Minnesota: Ed.S., educational psychology, 1979; Ph.D., educational psychology, 1981
Current occupation: Professor of special education, Vanderbilt University, TN  and co-director, Institute of Learning and Accommodation, John F. Kennedy Center for Human Development

"The faculty at the University of Minnesota modeled for us the type of collaborative relationships that researchers and practitioners can forge."

After earning master's degrees in education at the University of Pennsylvania, Lynn and Doug Fuchs were attracted to the University of Minnesota's Department of Psycho-educational Studies' reputation for producing excellent researchers, and came here to pursue doctoral degrees.

The Fuchs agree that one strength of the department is its requirement that students understand the importance of database research and the need to test educational practices against scientific methods.

Says Doug: "As a graduate student, I noticed that faculty didn't always agree on substance, but they all agreed on the methods that should be used to explore the substance. People could have differing perspectives, but they could talk about their different perspectives because they shared this larger understanding."

Both Lynn and Doug enjoy doing research--the challenge of reading scholarly literature, spending time in schools, talking with people on the front lines to understand what the important practical issues are, and then combining the practical knowledge with the scholarly knowledge to find ways to make a difference. Their current work involves coordinating educational research in low income schools to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of instructional programs for K-12 children.

The Fuchs use the skills they gained at the College every day, especially methods for rigorous field research. "If we were not in close and productive relationships with school people, we would not be able to accomplish what we have," explains Doug. "That whole process of working on tough school-based programs always connects us with many others in the field who are working as hard as we are."

Although they have been at Vanderbilt for 16 years, the Fuchs still stay in touch with college faculty and try to keep their closest advisors in the University of Minnesota. Stan Deno, Lynn's major advisor, remains a close colleague and has come to visit for the past 16 years, along with the Fuchs' colleague Joe Jenkins, to help analyze their research.

Not only do the Fuchs teach the same subject at the same school, they've been co-editors of the Journal of Special Education for the past 13 years and raised a son together, now 23.

Na'im Madyun
Hometown: Helena, AR
Degrees: Morehouse College: B.A., psychology, May 1997
University of Minnesota: Seeking Ph.D., educational psychology, May 2002
Current occupation: Student; family man

There's no easy blueprint for the school psychology student; it could lead you to plan a mural, stand on top of chairs reciting "O Captain, My Captain," and write a research paper all in the course of a day. Na'im Madyun, Ph.D. student in school psychology, has done all of this and more.

"I feel I am at the cutting edge of the field; my professors and colleagues have shaped and are shaping the field and I get to a be a part of it."

Na'im's time in the school psychology program has taught him that "resiliency is earned, not given."

When asked why he came to school here, Na'im responds: "Is there any other place to be?" He explains further: "I was part of an undergraduate research program at the U of M and I felt comfortable with the environment and was seduced by its reputation and national respect."

He considers the program's strongest point its "humanness...I feel as though I'm talking to real people with real strengths and weaknesses that are visible and not just a first and last name, an author or researcher...this realness makes it easier for me to truthfully evaluate my field and my potential place in it."

"A school psychologist is kind of like a doctor for schools. You view the school like a body, and your job is to keep it healthy."

When asked about the faculty, Na'im proclaims: "They are genuine. You see their weaknesses and flaws along with their strengths. You're given the good, the bad, the ugly. It makes the field less intimidating to have some of the big people in the field as your teachers. You take some classes from some of the movers and shakers." He considers the faculty "movers and shakers" because of their research and connections with government policy. Students gain hands-on experience assisting the faculty with writing chapters and grants. Na'im feels a real sense of community in the school psychology program; students talk to faculty by first name, take a lot of their courses together, and do a lot of group and team work. Na'im explains that "you get to know the people the year before you and behind you pretty well." He describes his interaction with other students as a "comfortable mixture of competition, support, with a sprinkle of curiosity."

School Psychology Student Association (SPSA), an association students are required to join, focuses on collaboration, interpersonal communication, bridging gaps and bringing groups together. Through this organization, Na'im has learned that interpersonal communication and collaboration is key to the school psychologist...and anyone else, for that matter.

Na'im plans to become a school psychologist and teach one class at the college level. In the short term, he hopes to intern somewhere in the inner-city with the African American population.

Na'im details issues school psychologists face as: handling crisis intervention, connecting communities to school, strengthening neighborhoods, trying to do less assessment and more intervention and prevention, developing afterschool activities, and determining why students are failing.

What motivates Na'im to pursue the challenging field of school psychology? "Opportunity for change: the change I can make by being a person in the field." He feels most passionate about improving opportunity and education for African Americans, primarily by connecting community to schools, improving outcomes for students.

Tina Patane
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN
Degrees: Notre Dame: B.A., English and sociology, 1994
University of Minnesota: Seeking Ph.D., educational psychology, May 2002
Current occupation: Student; research assistant; lab instructor

In the words of Tina Patane, Ph.D. student in foundations of educational psychology, the program's mission is "making the leap from theory to application for educators of all kinds"–administrators and policy-setters, for instance–and "to establish theory and make it apply to real-life educational issues."

"There's a nice foundation of established faculty research that you can tap into, but there's flexibility in the program to use that expertise as a springboard to pursue your own research."

Tina became interested in educational psychology through work she did for several educational intervention programs, such as Head Start in Atlanta. She liked the College's program because it is top-ranked nationally. Aware that the College has a strong faculty in reading and narrative comprehension, Tina chose to specialize in learning and cognition.

Students whose emphasis is learning and cognition study the conditions under which individuals learn, the cognitive and intellectual structures that support learning, and the psychological factors involved in planning instruction. "I think of foundations as a theory and research-focused area of ed. psych.," Tina says. Research topics range from narrative comprehension to theories of cooperative learning to conflict resolution, education management, children's play behaviors, motivation and math scores, and technology.

"There's a place here for any focus that has to do with human learning."

Foundations students tend to be interested in research in one or more of the following areas: decision making, problem solving, artificial intelligence, text comprehension, computer-based learning, mathematical and causal reasoning, teaching effectiveness, cognitive diagnostic testing, and/or instructional technology.

One program strength is the diversity of background, interests, and goals of students and faculty. Students in various department programs get to know each other through statistics core courses, research methods courses, and the process of written and oral pre-lim exams. Tina notes that foundations is flexible and accommodating about how you pace yourself in the program, allowing students "the ability to move forward with ideas as a broad range of interests and specializations pull together." Students all face similar challenges, and there's a sense of community among people who have assistantships.

Some students plan to become academics, others hope to pursue public or private research. Many people hope to work on textbooks, educational measurement, and test creation at the government level or for private foundations. When she graduates, Tina will look for opportunities to practice both research and teaching...wherever those opportunities may be.

Tina has always tried to gain experience in both teaching and research. "I've had the opportunity to do a lot of teaching here. Teaching at the college level is what I want to do." The college provides plenty of opportunities for teaching; Tina has been a T.A. for several courses, and has taught in the community.

She also works as a research assistant for the College's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI). Her research team is doing a national study of afterschool programs. This research connects conceptually with classwork because CAREI studies the impact of all types of education programs. Says Tina, "there's always overlap between the work you're doing in your classes."

Kay Thomas
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN 
Degrees: 
Macalester College: B.A., psychology and religion, 1963
University of Minnesota: M.A., History, 1974; M.A., educational psychology, 1982; Ph.D., educational psychology, 1985
Current occupation: Director, International Student and Scholar Services and President, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

Ever since she was an undergrad, Kay Thomas knew she wanted to work at a university. She thought she wanted to be a dean. She turned out to be Director of International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) and President of NAFSA.

"CSPP was the greatest, most practical degree for the job I have now."

As an undergrad working on a B.A. in psychology at Macalester College, Kay attended a big lecture at the University of Minnesota by B.F. Skinner. The lecture made her realize she didn't want to do strict psychology because it seemed too scientific, lacking a human element. She resonated right away with educational psychology, a separate department at the University that rated higher at the time than the psychology program (It was ranked the best program in the country...with only three full-time faculty!).

Study abroad experiences in Greece and Germany led her to a job working with exchange programs in ISSS. Kay knew she wanted to stay in higher education and loved the international environment, so she remained with ISSS.

“So much of our culture is out of the reach of our own awareness. We aren’t aware of what is right or wrong to us until we’re confronted with something different.”

She says the counseling and student personnel psychology (CSPP) program was great preparation for her career. She counsels international students, working closely with the University Counseling Service and Boynton Mental Health. Kay uses the skills she learned at CSPP every day: counseling skills, group skills, organizational development issues.

CSPP taught her how much we are a product of our cultures. Her dissertation asked "do cultural values impact a student or client's preference for counselor style?"

In her dissertation, Kay examined how people can't remove themselves from the culture; the norms are different for students brought up in an individualist culture like the U.S. than for people with more collectivist upbringings. Counselors need to see how they're reacting to patients in terms of cultural values, because people feel more comfortable in situations that mesh with their cultural upbringing.

In addition to her role in ISSS, Kay has maintained ties with CSPP by teaching a cross-cultural counseling course since 1980. Says Kay: "I had my best time ever this year. This was the year I was going to take time off. But this class has been just great."

As adjunct faculty in P&A, comparative and international development education, she has served on committees, and she teaches skills to pharmacists in a course on social cultural pharmacy with former CSPP classmate Bruce Benson.

In fact, she has kept in contact with quite a few of her former classmates in CSPP. Kay recalls being part of a close class of 16 going for a Ph.D. "A strength of CSPP was they got interesting people; they brought in tons of experience, plus they were interesting people you wanted to get to know better."

Students of her class went in pretty diverse and evenly divided directions: consulting with businesses, private practices, higher education, and industry.

When asked how she would explain the program to someone who knows nothing about it, Kay describes CSPP as the "application of psychology to educational environments...wherever you have people and you want to maximize their effectiveness." It is a science/practitioner program, using both theory and practice, with students learning through internships in addition to what they're taught in the classroom.

More CSPP alums were interviewed for the College alumni magazine, The Link, Fall 1999.

Revised 2001