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New Faculty Member Receives UNCG’s Senior Research Excellence Award

DR. SUSAN CALKINS received UNCG’s highest honor for scholarship, the 2008 UNCG Senior Research Excellence Award. Susan’s research concerns early social and emotional development, especially as it is related to later outcomes (e.g., aggressive behavior, peer relations, academic achievement). Her work is grounded in a strong conceptual foundation that considers the biological and contextual antecedents of self-regulation. With very consistent, substantial external funding from NIMH as well as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Susan has investigated these issues in four methodologically rigorous, longitudinal studies of infants and children. Her approach, including her examinations of self-regulation’s physiological manifestations, cuts across disciplinary boundaries and is cutting edge. She has illuminated the key role of children’s early selfregulatory abilities in fostering positive subsequent adjustment. Through her investigations, it has become clear that regulatory abilities do have a biological base, but that these abilities are also influenced by the quality of the caregiving
environment in which the child grows up.

Susan has been at UNCG since 1994. She joined HDFS as her primary department on August 1, 2007. Susan now maintains a secondary appointment in Psychology. She holds a highly coveted Independent Scientist Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. She serves as Associate Editor of the American Psychological Association’s journal, Developmental Psychology, and is a member of the Center for Developmental Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Within UNCG, Susan chairs the Child and Family Research Network (CFRN), a campuswide group of faculty members and researchers whose scholarship and teaching reflects a core concern for the welfare of children and families (see http://cfrn.uncg.edu/). The goal of the Network is to facilitate collaboration among these faculty and other individuals interested in children and families, and to enhance scholarship, teaching, and service within the local, regional, national and international community. HDFS welcomes Susan as a member of our department and takes pride in her outstanding accomplishments!

Former HDFS Professor and CCEP Director publishes book: “The Wit & Wisdom of Children”

In twenty-six years as director of UNCG's Child Care Education Program (CCEP), Dr. Helen Canaday's first motivation was always the children. Over the decades, Helen compiled many of their comments on index cards. This book is from the collection gathered during a career of teaching, research, education, and one-on-one interaction with "those lovable children." From "Team Players" to "Out in the Big World," Helen included seventeen chapters that encompass the depth of young children and their daily happenings. Through various situations, she shows how individual yet universal -and critical- the early years of life are. Intelligence, innocence, and inquisitiveness flow from the mouths of boys and girls. In addition to the children's anecdotes and CCEP history, Helen gives developmental and social backdrops that continue to be relevant and resonate with parents, grandparents, and caregivers of youngsters. When Helen arrived in 1958, the Nursery School Building was newly constructed; under her leadership, the programs enjoyed immense growth and procured international exposure as people visited the model building and groundbreaking programs. Programs were added and then consolidated under her guidance. Today CCEP serves as the lab school for the Human Development and Family Studies Department of UNCG's School of Human Environmental Sciences, and the program has six classrooms located in three different buildings on campus. Helen's desire is that The Wit & Wisdom of Children will inspire others to give generously toward the consolidated child care center that will unite these programs under one roof. Copies of Dr. Canaday’s book are available through the HES Dean’s office by donation only (minimum donation $25 plus shipping). Book proceeds will go toward planning a new building for UNCG’s Child Care Education Program. For more information contact Emily Caudle, 336-256-1461, elcaudle@uncg.edu.