University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Distinguished Professor Nadya Fouad is known internationally for research into how people make career decisions, from the societal pressure on mothers to set aside their careers after their children are born to the high dropout rate among women in engineering.<\/p>\n
Fouad\u2019s tenure at 51ÁÔÆæ spans 30 years, and she\u2019s chair of the School of Education\u2019s department of educational psychology. The top-ranked 51ÁÔÆæ program is a leader in educating school psychologists and counselors in the Midwest.<\/p>\n
Now, thanks to a new $5 million gift from the Kelben Foundation to 51ÁÔÆæ, Fouad will also hold the inaugural Mary and Ted Kellner Chair in Educational Psychology. Foundation President Mary Kellner is a 1978 graduate of 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s educational psychology program and worked in two Wisconsin school districts.<\/p>\n
Fouad spoke about how the gift will help her department deepen the Kelben Foundation\u2019s commitment to connecting children of all ages to counseling services.<\/p>\n
What does it mean to be recognized in this way by a former student and her family\u2019s Kelben Foundation?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s a marvelous honor. It was a total surprise. I\u2019m deeply grateful for the recognition and the honor of this endowed chair, but what I love most is the actual work. I love the work with my students \u2013 watching them grow and develop. I\u2019ve also been privileged to work with an incredible group of colleagues.<\/p>\n What are you most proud of as chair of the educational psychology department?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our deep commitment to cultural competency. We have programs that prepare school counselors and counseling psychologists that go into the community and work in such diverse settings \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u2013 hospitals to Veterans Affairs to private practice to working in university counseling centers to being faculty. Every single faculty member is really committed to cultural competency, and every student comes out of the program very well trained.<\/p>\n What does it mean to have counselors who are culturally competent?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s asking questions like, \u201cAre we making sure that everybody is being treated equitably?\u201d At the school psychologist level, are we making sure that the students who are being referred for diagnostic services are being referred for the right reasons? Like, the overabundance of African-American men or boys who are referred for treatment because they don’t fit somebody\u2019s typical profile. A culturally competent counselor can ask those questions and, through cultural analysis, they can also make sure that people within the school are attending to culture.<\/p>\n You study career decision-making, which is a broad area of human psychology. What aspect of it do you study most closely?<\/strong><\/p>\n The career decision-making process is much more complex than we thought. The last 10 years have shown that the environment makes a lot of difference. What work is available? The world of work has changed. People are making more career changes, and I study how that process is different for women and racial and ethnic minorities than it is for white men. And the answer is: It\u2019s more complex.<\/p>\n What are some of the complexities?<\/strong><\/p>\n Certainly, family influences \u2013 what the family wants or expects you to do \u2013 is more important. When the family says, \u201cThis is what our people do,\u201d that\u2019s big, and that\u2019s gendered.<\/p>\n Men don\u2019t feel that same kind of pressure?<\/strong><\/p>\n Men are not immune from societal and family messages, but the messages \u2013 depending on the social class \u2013 tend to be about prestige or a professional occupation or about being a provider. Young girls are still getting the \u201cDo something until you have a baby\u201d kind of messages. Can you believe it?<\/p>\n Research for your four-year National Science Foundation study on engineering careers ends this fall. What have you learned so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m doing that with Romila Singh, a professor in the Lubar School of Business. We started looking at why women are leaving engineering. We\u2019ve continued that work, looking at men in engineering and why some people persist in the field. The women in engineering study hit a nerve. We were hoping for 800 respondents and we got over 5,500. Everybody is concerned about retaining women.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll give you an example. In the women\u2019s sample, we had over 500 women who graduated in engineering, and they were still connected enough to their alma mater that they responded to a survey link, but they never entered the profession. They graduated in engineering, but they never became engineers. That\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n Do you consult at all with corporations or organizations?<\/strong><\/p>\n As a result of the engineering study, I\u2019ve given talks to corporate partners of the Society of Women Engineers. I\u2019ve talked to CEOs of tech companies at a conference, but their organizations basically say, \u201cWe\u2019re not ready.\u201d What we tell the organizations is, \u201cIt\u2019s not about fixing the women. Get out of your comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n What are three signs you should go into psychology?<\/strong><\/p>\n Concern for the welfare of others, a genuine interest in understanding human behavior and interest in the scientific. The hallmark of a psychologist is that you\u2019re being scientifically minded about this. You\u2019re not just helping people. It\u2019s understanding what works for whom when, and caring about that.<\/p>\n When did you know you wanted to pursue a career in psychology?<\/strong><\/p>\n I wanted to study people. Originally, I don’t think it was study \u2013 it was help. And then I went to a marvelous graduate program where the focus was on research, and I got interested in asking questions and finding answers. I was always a person that people came and talked to. I started volunteering at a crisis line when I was 16 and they had to make an exception for me. I was young, but I knew I wanted to do it.<\/p>\n What is your advice to the student who is between majors?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the best thing we can do is teach people how to make that decision. What\u2019s important to them? What do they want to listen to? They should understand the role of work in their lives. Do they want work to be big? Do they want work to meet survival needs? It helps to know how to make that decision, because the reality is, you\u2019re going to have to do that many times in your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Distinguished Professor Nadya Fouad will hold the inaugural Mary and Ted Kellner Chair in Educational Psychology, thanks to part of a new $5 million gift from the Kelben Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":487,"featured_media":34277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"section":[246,259],"display_categories":[115,116],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[347,162,148],"class_list":["post-34273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","section-business-world-affairs","section-education","display_categories-top-story-secondary","display_categories-top-story-section","uwmnews-feed-community-engagement-professions","uwmnews-feed-business","uwmnews-feed-education"],"yoast_head":"\n