I grew up in Dallas and graduated as a psychology major from Trinity College in far away Washington, D.C. My first job as a research assistant, testing in deaf and hearing children’s learning spawned an interest in statistics, an interest that lay fallow as my husband, Peter, and I began a family. I nurtured our first three children in the uncountable ways stay-at-home mothers did in the 60s and 70s. I returned to statistics, as a teaching assistant in Smith College’s department of psychology the same year our fourth child was born. I was intellectually reborn several years later during the first lecture of introduction to geology. My fascination with geology grew on field trips to Montana, Death Valley, Hawaii and a non-touristy island in the Bahamas where I was not only student but also counselor to students much younger than me. Those years transformed my belief in the importance of education into a passion for learning. That insight motivates my involvement in the Scholars program; more than endorsing the value of continuing education, we hope to nurture a life long passion for learning in children.
