Megan McClelland Oral History Interview, February 9, 2021

MIKAELA SWAIM: Okay, should be recording. Hi, I have to go over my intro. I'm Mikaela. I'm a fourth-year student in HDFS and I'm currently in an honor's class about women in history, which is why we're conducting this oral history interview. If you could go ahead and give me your name and your title and also your location, where you're at, and then if you verbally consent to having this interview recorded for video and audio and uploaded to the Oregon State Digital Archives.

MEGAN MCCLELLAND: Okay, great. Thanks, Mikaela, for this invitation. This is really fun, actually to do. My name's Megan McClelland. I'm a professor at OSU in Human Development and Family Sciences. My official-I have a number of titles, I guess. It's a little unwieldy, but one of my titles is I'm a Catherine 00:01:00Smith Professor of Healthy Children and Families and I'm also the Endowed Director of the Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families.

MS: Look at you go!

MM: [Laughs] So, that's a little crazy. Basically, I'm a professor at OSU. I've been here for 20 years.

MS: Perfect. Then do you consent to the recording and being uploaded to the archives?

MM: I do consent to the recording and being uploaded.

MS: Perfect. Sounds good. Okay, let's see here. The first interview question, let me pull it up. It won't let me minimize while I'm recording.

MM: Okay. I have to apologize in advance if the dog starts barking.

MS: That's okay. My cat might start meowing so.

MM: That's okay.

MS: It'll be a fun little addition. Okay, here we are. So, I guess what I first want to start out with is give me an 00:02:00overview of how you got to where you are today. You can focus on your childhood or college or whatever you think is what led you to maybe pursuing this profession or maybe choosing OSU? Wherever you want to run with that first.

MM: I'm going to try and give you the Cliffs Notes version. Somewhat unusual, maybe, for some folks. I was born and raised on Maui in Hawaii. I lived there for my whole life until I went to college and when you live on an island, essentially, and you're basically part of a minority group in a place like that because it's very multicultural but the predominant culture is really, has not been white or they call it 00:03:00haole. I would say that haole is not seen as a very, it's not a good term. It actually means having no breath. It means you're dead because when the missionaries first came to the Hawaiian Islands, introduced all illness and all these other things, religion, and exploited native Hawaiians they at first the native Hawaiians thought that they were gods coming in because they were so white, so pale, they thought that they were dead. They called them haoles. Over time, though, I think that being in Hawaii if you're haole is not very positive, because you're always connected with this group that has come in and exploited a native population, even though that wasn't any of my ancestors or 00:04:00anybody. For a lot of my upbringing, I was trying really hard to fit in and I remember growing up my sisters and I were very fair and blonde. I was really blonde and blue-eyed, and I remember wishing and praying I could be dark-haired and dark skin because then I would fit in more. I think because it was a safety issue, I mean we would get beat up if you went to public schools when I was little.

So, my sisters and I went to a Catholic school. My cousins, we had cousins thankfully, that had gone there before us. I grew up in this very interesting cultural context, which was, on the one hand, a real appreciation for the aina, the land in Hawaii, where you've come from and this real tie to this land if you're born and raised someplace. At the same time, that you kind of are 00:05:00being discriminated against in a way because you're from this minority group in different ways and I would say not in a, in terms of the institutionalism racism that most African Americans and others have experienced, but for me growing up in the context I was it was challenging, my sisters and I. There was that kind of context along with trying to-there was this feeling of not fitting in and also wanting to get off the rock, but also this real love and connection and wonderful parts of growing up in a place like that where you have incredible family relationships are really valued. Everything is about the family and collaborating with each other. There's so many wonderful parts of the culture, too. I think I had real conflicted feelings growing up and I 00:06:00also, for my own upbringing, was very interested in how we become who we are. I was conflicted, my parents got a divorce and my mom remarried and my dad remarried. I was going through all these transitions in this cultural context and then I had a group of cousins who also grew up there and they were quite different than my sisters and I, very, very different.

My mom, you know my dad had a master's degree and was a business consultant and they had moved over from California. My father's family is actually from the East Coast and is very, very academically oriented so I have a great grandfather who was a president of a college. Then I have another great uncle who's like one of the most famous psychologists of the 20th century. His name is David McClelland. You grow up-and David McClelland and his family used to come to Maui-so I grew up knowing 00:07:00this person and knowing that he was this famous psychologist but not really knowing what that was. In all this context, it was just fascinating because on the one hand I had this very educated side of the family (on my dad's side) and then my mother was extremely focused on going to college, so we always, everybody talked about in my family when you go to college. It was never a question, because it was really prioritized. A lot of emphasis on reading and the love of reading and working hard and then I had these cousins from my mom's side that all grew up on the island and there was none of that focus on higher education at all. They had a lot more problems. I had a cousin who's been in and out of jail her entire life and drug dealing and lots of issues, lots of cousins who have lots and lots of problems, substance abuse. I have another cousin who unfortunately 00:08:00died, a cousin.

There's these, for me growing up I was trying to understand, I think, and reconcile how in the world are my sisters and I going this way and I have this whole group of cousins that had very different priorities in their life and then I had this family on my dad's side who's so academic and I was just very curious about it. I started seeing my uncle's name in a psychology textbook and I was like, well, what is that? I remember asking him "what do you do?" I went to college, which is in and of itself for people from Hawaii not everybody goes to college and university. It's very challenging, I think, for many of those students to do well on the mainland. For me, I was really eager to see the world and get off the rock, even though now it's an amazing 00:09:00place to live and grow up and return to. I went to UC Irvine, and I remember having my great uncle say, oh, just very casually, oh I have two former students that are professors there. You should go say hello. I was like, oh my gosh, really? Okay. I don't think so. That's embarrassing. I came around to and understood psychology and I started getting really interested, because I wanted to understand for myself how in the world are my sisters and I going one way and all these other cousins going a different way in these individual pathways of development were just really fascinating to me. Also, interrupt me at any time.

MS: No, keep going. You're doing great.

MM: I was also really interested in seeing so many kids in Hawaii who were struggling and not being successful. Well, it depends on how you define 00:10:00success, right? But, experiencing lots of challenges in terms of substance abuse, getting arrested, so not indicators of life success. You know. A lot of the cousins, my cousins' kids, have lots of challenges. I wanted to understand that. I wanted to figure out how I could help them. So, I went to college, and I studied psychology and social behavior. I was really fascinated by how all of those questions, and I did talk to those professors [laughs], which was a little embarrassing that my uncle had trained, and they went, "your uncle's David McClelland?" I remember, it was so funny, to one of them I said, "Yeah, I don't know, have you heard of him?" [laughs] I was so clueless, she goes, "Uh, yeah, he's like one of the most famous psychologists of the last 100 00:11:00years." But, you know, growing up where I grew up this was just nothing that I understood or recognized. Anyway, I went to school in Southern California at UC Irvine and studied psychology and I came in as a dance major, because I was also a very aspiring ballet dancer for my whole life but realized that if I wanted to be a dancer I needed to be in a company and if I was really serious about it, I needed to take some time and do that first. I kind of knew that I was good, but I wasn't good enough and did I really want to live the life of a dancer? Which is really, really hard and you make no money. I decided to find a college, a university, that had a really good dance program, where I could dance five days a week and also a really good psychology program.

MS: So, that's why you landed there? Okay.

MM: That's it. So, I applied to all these random schools, including NYU, 00:12:00and I got in everywhere because they were like, oh my God, this girl's from Hawaii. This is different. I must have filled some quota. Anyway, I came over with an accent, a pidgin accent. Then I kind of got rid of that over time but it comes out every so often if I'm talking to people from Hawaii or my family. Anyway, I studied psychology and was really interested in it. I studied abroad and I had all these amazing experiences in college and got a little involved in research, but it was not something I really liked to do.

MS: Oh, interesting.

MM: I hated it. I had all the grunt work.

MS: One of my later questions was how you got involved in research, so we'll get there soon, maybe.

MM: Yes. Well, and you know, Mikaela, it's funny because 00:13:00now I'm so aware of how it was for me, and I thought this sucks. I don't want to do research. This is the most boring stuff on the planet. But I was photocopying. I was videotaping some play, thing. None of it was interesting or fun. None of it. Tell me if I'm freezing. It says my connection's unstable.

MS: You froze for like one second but you're fine now. And the audio was working perfectly.

MM: Okay, so you can just let me know if something doesn't work. Anyway, then at the end of my undergrad I remember thinking, oh okay I have no money. I have to graduate in four years. I was very determined. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I was completely, completely feeling like I was running a marathon and going to the finish line and then I had no idea what to do after that. I know this sounds familiar.

MS: Like a little inspirational speaker then because you're doing very well now. 00:14:00MM: Well, you'll figure it out. I ended up taking-you know what I did was I graduated and then I worked abroad in England. I went back to England, and I worked over there for three or four months. I had applied to graduate school, but at the time I only applied to programs I kind of knew about in psychology, which were clinical or counseling psychology programs. They're so competitive. I mean there was one program that I applied for that was like 800 applicants and they had eight people they accepted. It was just awful. I remember thinking: what am I doing? I talked to professors, and I got a job. I had no money, and I didn't want to move back to Maui because what was I going to do? I worked as a research assistant for a year. I was able to get some pay for that and talked to my professors and took two years off, actually, after my undergrad to figure out 00:15:00what in the world I wanted to do with my life. I didn't want to just jump into grad school until I really knew what I wanted to do, because it's a long haul. Thankfully one of my professors said, well, have you ever heard of developmental psychology? I said, no. No idea. She told me about developmental psych, and I started looking up programs and I thought, oh my gosh this is exactly what I'm interested in. It studies how people change over time. I don't have to do therapy. I mean, I thought I might want to do therapy but then I did an internship as a counselor, and it was hardcore. I had to file child abuse cases. I thought "yikes."

MS: Was that in California, that internship?

MM: Yeah.

MS: Was your research assistant job, was that in England or was that also in California?

MM: No, that was in California. It was all through UC Irvine. When I went to England, I studied for a year there first at the University of Sussex and 00:16:00had a fantastic time studying abroad for a year and then I went back after I graduated college because I didn't know what I was going to do. I took six months and then I worked in England, and I was an assistant to a secretary. Everyone always knows, even now, as the director of a whole building and a center, if the copier breaks down, call Megan because she knows how to fix it, you know? I always have great respect for office staff because of this. I worked in California, talked to professors, learned a little bit about options, talked to people out in the field. I called the alumni and said "tell me about your job" who were master's in social work, some were teachers. Some were psychologists. I was just trying to get information and it was really useful for me to do that. I figured out I wanted to go to grad school, and I 00:17:00wanted to know more. I wanted to understand what was going on. I wanted to be an expert in something that I could speak about and really answer some questions I was really wanting to answer. That led me to developmental psychology and that's where I ended up at Loyola University in Chicago, which is a private school and that's where I got my master's and my Ph.D.

MS: Did you apply to a couple of other ones or was that the one you really wanted?

MM: Yeah, I applied all over. I think I applied to six or eight, maybe eight grad programs. I remember I was trying to decide between George Washington University, which is probably a better name school but there was just none of the support that I was going to get at Loyola. I talked to my advisor, and I remember thinking, and I talked to the grad students, 00:18:00and they just described this incredibly supportive, great opportunity to work in this group of people that were really well-mentored by this guy, Fred Morrison. So, I ended up going to Loyola. Got it funded and moved to Chicago from Hawaii and Southern California. That was a challenge. I thought I was going to die of frostbite. Lived in Chicago for five years. It was very fun. It was a lot of work. It was probably some of the most interesting, great intellectually stimulating time of my life, just because I was learning so much and I was able to train with Fred Morrison, who's like a pretty unbelievable mentor and I don't think I'll ever be as good a mentor as he is, but he was-

MS: I think you do well.

MM: Oh [laughs] thanks. He's just such a smart guy who, he says, well, my mentoring 00:19:00style is I get you going on some big question you want to answer and then I just get out of the way. I'm thinking to myself, yeah it wasn't quite like that exactly, but he did follow through. He did have high expectations. He did ask you questions and boy you better have it together. You better have your act together because if you didn't, he would bring it up in our lab meeting and he would say to someone, and when were you supposed to get that to me? In front of everybody. That happened to one of my colleagues in my cohort, another student, I thought to myself this will never happen to me. Anyway, so he really guided me hugely because he had some data and I said "Well, I'm kind of interested in aggression in girls." He goes, "Yeah, I don't really have anything on that. But I have some stuff"-I was 00:20:00like on more social development stuff. He said, well, I have this data, and nobody's really looked at this. They're called these learning-related social skills, which are like social skills that kids have but they're really helpful for them in the classroom. I have all this data sitting here and no one's really looked at it. Do you want to look at it? I was like, okay. You know, I just let myself be molded a bit because he really was amazing and so smart and was right 98% of the time.

He says after five years of that, I convinced him of the importance of social skills. He always said that to me. Because he was a cognitive psychologist and he really studied literacy and math and cognition, and I was really interested in social behavior. That's how I got going and I really got onto my master's thesis paper that we 00:21:00were able to publish until literally, I don't know, a year ago was my most highly cited paper over 1,000 times or something and I don't know that it was anything that crazy. It was just a different look at something people hadn't really looked at that way. I guess it filled a gap.

MS: What was that paper on specifically?

MM: It was on the importance of learning-related social skills for academic achievement. It's basically teachers rating kids on their attention, their persistence, their cooperation-sound familiar?

MS: Uh-huh.

MM: When they're in kindergarten and whether those kinds of skills predicted their academic skills at the end of second grade.

MS: Yeah.

MM: Yep.

MS: I see how it all lines up.

MM: Isn't it funny? This is like the first little, I always talk about a research pathway, this was my first stone in my little research pathway, and we called it learning-related social skills. But they were like self-regulation and 00:22:00social skills, also like how well you could get along with other kids, how well you could cooperate. It was very much this self-regulation piece of paying attention and focusing and persisting. Then we had this data on these 500 kids, and we had IQ. I mean, we were able to control for a kid's IQ. I don't even get IQ anymore because it's irrelevant, right? But what was really useful was for the first time we were able to show that those skills predicted on top of your initial literacy skills, your math skills, your IQ. There was something still important about these skills that predicated how well you did in school, like two, three years later. That was my master's thesis. Then, Fred said, well where did these skills come from? Of course, I was like I don't know [laughs]. That's where we started. I, again, listened and built on what he was 00:23:00saying but I got really interested in the foundation of those skills. My dissertation I did my own study and collected my own data with about 75 kids and families over a year's time in preschools all over Chicago and got some parenting data, some temperament (whether a child's temperament played a role), what parents are doing at home. It's fascinating. Teachers rating the kids and, so, that was my dissertation. But I will tell you something funny and then maybe we can stop, but I went into grad school absolutely committed and determined not to be a professor.

MS: Really?

MM: I was completely not interested.

MS: That's funny. I mean, you also didn't like research when you started out, either so.

MM: In fact, I remember thinking-why don't I want 00:24:00to be a professor? You just sit there. You teach the same class like 25 times. How boring is this? It seemed so stressful. So, I really wanted to work at LEGO and do product development or develop all these really cool toys for kids. I thought I'm going to work for LEGO, or I want to work at a research institute.

MS: So, why LEGO specifically?

MM: It was cool, and it was more focused on kids and play and stuff they were going to have fun with, and I liked that.

MS: I'm sure it'd be a fun job.

MM: Yeah. I know people that work at LEGO. It's just funny how things went around. What happened-two things happened. One is I got into my research area, and I got onto these learning-related skills, and I got really interested in what was going on and I thought what in the heck is happening here? I really want to investigate this more and I wanted the 00:25:00freedom to investigate that, which is hard to do when you work at a place like LEGO, by the way, or at a research institute where you have to fund your own salary. That means you have to get grants and contracts that may be in a different area than what you're interested in. But if I'm an academic I have a lot of freedom to choose what I want to study.

Then the other thing was I got a teaching fellowship to fund a year of my time. I got a teaching fellowship for a year, and I got a dissertation fellowship for a year at the end of my Ph.D. The teaching fellowship helped me teach two classes and I was mentored by another amazing advisor of mine, Debbie Holmes. Much to my great surprise I really liked teaching. Much to my surprise, I thought, oh, this is actually kind of fun. I'm really enjoying getting to know students. 00:26:00I feel like I'm having these great conversations. I feel like I can help them maybe learn information that might be useful to them as parents or as caregivers, or whatever, teachers. I thought, huh, wow. Well, okay, but even going into my fifth year when I was graduating-

MS: And this was all still in Chicago, right?

MM: All in Chicago for five years, yep. Masters and then Ph.D. Usually it takes two to three years for a masters and then another two to three for your Ph.D. I got my masters done in two years which was somewhat quick, or on time depending on how you look at it, and then another three for my Ph.D. When I was applying for jobs, I remember thinking, well, I'm going to apply for these academic jobs because it's really hard to go from the business world into academia. It's a lot easier to go from 00:27:00academics into the business world. So, very pragmatically I said if this, I'm going to apply for academic jobs and if they completely are terrible and I hate it, I'm going to go work at LEGO. I thought, I'll get paid way more. It was a great idea. I applied to 35 jobs.

MS: Oof.

MM: Yeah. Anyway, I got the job at OSU, which right out of grad school, which is somewhat unusual now, and even then. I mean, often you do a postdoc somewhere. You do additional training somewhere for a year or two. But I think I was just a good fit for the program in HDFS and here at OSU and I guess it worked. I have to tell you I didn't even know what HDFS was. I had never heard of it. I remember thinking, I mean I'm coming out of a developmental psych program at UC Irvine I had a psych in social behavior. It was a little more contextual, but it was nothing like what HDFS is, and I thought "what in the world is this program?"

MS: I thought the same when I was applying.

MM: You what? 00:28:00MS: I thought a similar thing when I was applying.

MM: I know. I didn't even know. Anyway, so I got a job which was kind of unusual. I started at OSU when I was just finished my Ph.D. when I was 28 turning, maybe turning 29? 28. Yeah. Turning 29 maybe? That was in 2001. Then, yeah. I was crazy.

MS: Did you pick OSU specifically for HDFS or just kind of like-

MM: No, I was applying for jobs that were looking for someone in child development. I fit really well what they were looking for. I had a mentor tell me when you look at a job description, and this goes for you too, but often when you look for a job description you want, it should be like reading your own CV or your resume back to you. It should line up, like you go, yeah: ding, ding, ding, 00:29:00ding I have all these things.

MS: Right.

MM: I was a really good fit. I was able to get a tenure-track job right out of grad school, which was somewhat, you know, I was pretty young when I started. I had graduate students who were older than me. That was a little bit weird.

MS: No, it's impressive.

MM: It was a little weird, but not in psychology. I mean often people go straight through. I don't know. I think in HDFS the grad students tend to be older sometimes. I don't know. It's just the demographic, but anyway I started here in heavy teaching mode and had to hit the ground running.

MS: Well, that's super cool. Yeah, how was the transition from living in the different areas? Do you definitely like-I see you've lived island life, lived in southern California, you've lived in a city like Chicago and then you live in Corvallis-do you have a preference? 00:30:00MM: Yeah, it was a hard time moving to a little town like Corvallis. I will say that. I miss the food in Chicago. I miss the-I was in a relationship and that was a whole other wrinkle. You don't want to stay-I always say, don't ever move for a guy unless he's going to move for you, by the way. I was trying so hard to stay in Chicago and it just wasn't working. We did this long-distance thing, and I was going back and forth for a couple of years, like a mess. Thankfully that didn't work out, honestly, but I think it made it harder for me to transition to Corvallis in terms of the town.

MS: Yeah, definitely. Well, do you like it now?

MM: Yes. You know I've been here a long time and my sister lives in Portland and my parents still live in Hawaii, but they come over, well they did, come over often before the pandemic.

MS: Right. 00:31:00MM: Corvallis is a really great place to raise kids. I met my husband here and he's a professor at OSU and so it was nice because we didn't have to worry about getting jobs at the same place. We were both here. That was lucky. It's hard sometimes for people who are both trying to find jobs. It has worked well. My kids are 9 and 12 and so it's been a good place for them and close enough to my family, so that's been-

MS: Yeah, that's good. Is part of your family still in Hawaii?

MM: It is. I have a really big family.

MS: Do you visit often?

MM: Yes, actually, because the pandemic this last summer was the first time in my entire life that I have not been back in a year. We go home, I still sort of think of it that way, but we go back every year, at least probably once a year for a couple weeks in the summer. Then my mom and my stepdad come to Portland and Corvallis probably four times a year.

MS: Oh okay.

MM: We're used to seeing them more 00:32:00 often.

MS: That's nice. You can still see them. It's definitely a fun place to visit. I know you didn't enjoy living there, per se.

MM: Yeah, no it's been great. My kids love going. My step sister lives on Maui. She has a very successful girl's surf school or surf camp called Maui Surfer Girls. She's just won entrepreneur of the year for Maui County and she's one of the finalists for the whole state. She's just a professional surfer who's just awesome. We grew up together, but she's stayed there and she's in the water every day. I don't know how she does it.

MS: Well, that's super cool. Was that your only sister? Do you have more? I know you were talking about how your immediate family was very academically based and your cousins were definitely not.

MM: Yeah, I have two 00:33:00 sisters.

MS: Is it still like that?

MM: Yeah. I have two sisters and a stepsister. My stepsister has always been outdoorsy doing crazy things, honestly. That's what she's-super successful now in terms of her own business and surf school.

MS: Yeah, that's super cool.

MM: Then my little sister is a teacher. She has a master's in teaching. She's been teaching for 12 or 14 years or so. She lives in Portland, but she's moved up here from southern California, also went to school there. We have relatives in southern California, so we all went to schools. She went to Chapman. I went to UC Irvine and my other, older sister went to UC Santa Barbara. My little sister's 00:34:00a teacher in the Vancouver School District and teaches 3rd or 4th grade, depending. She's a master teacher. She's an amazing teacher with low-income kids. Then my older sister has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology.

MS: Oh, okay. So, a little different, because you guys are more focused on human development-

MM: Kids.

MS: Kids, child development.

MM: Yeah, so she looks at pathogens and viruses and fungi.

MS: That's cool.

MM: Yeah, so she's been a professor and though she's not working at that university anymore. But just a professor. They live in Tennessee. She has two kids. She's the one, we're very close, all of us, but we don't get to see her as much.

MS: Right. That's a little bit of a ways.

MM: Yeah.

MS: Well, after you came to OSU what led you to working with self-regulation here and the research here? 00:35:00MM: Yeah, well, I will say, a couple of things that really, I think, led to my success or just feeling like I get promoted and tenured and promoted again and I think one of them was I had this pathway of research that I had started in grad school, and I was really interested in continuing it. I had a great mentor who trained me, and I started doing my own studies as a grad student, so when I came to OSU I did a pilot study, a smaller study, and I had six undergrads. It's not that different. I had six undergrads working with me and we did another study over a year's time, two years' time, and then I published with friends and colleagues on data they had. Applied for grants. Taught a lot, a lot of students. I was teaching six classes when I first started here.

MS: My goodness. 00:36:00MM: A year and then down to five and then down to four, I guess, a year. But then if you have grant money or other things. Initially I was just trying to figure out how to get tenure and be a good teacher, be a really good researcher and demonstrate that I had an independent program of research that I was really interested in and then also professionally do what I needed to do to be a good colleague. All those things you have to really demonstrate, and you have about five years to do it. Then you go up for tenure and promotion and so it was definitely intense, but I had good colleagues, supportive colleagues that wanted me to do well. I think one thing, so the one thing that I think contributed to my success was having this program of research that I was continuing. I had been well-trained, and I just continued to 00:37:00add to my little pathway and then applied to grants to try to fund that work. Had support, honestly, in that. Had support from my associate dean at the time who then became, Jeff McCubbin, he became the Dean at Colorado State for ten years. He was incredibly supportive of junior faculty when I was coming up. I was able to get internal grants to fund the work so that I could then apply for grant funding. By the time I did get my first big grant I had done all this work to lay the foundation. I had really supportive colleagues, I would say, that they want you to be successful and that was hugely important.

Then I had a mentor that, an informal mentor, who was a woman named Liz Gray, and I'll tell you I think for women in academia having a mentor who is a woman who can really help guide 00:38:00you was incredibly important and oh my gosh. She would just-we co-taught together and she, oh my goodness. I was the researcher and she used to be a sex therapist. She was just so different from me. She was all about the application and I was like, okay I think you should talk about that part, and I'll talk about the research. We just had so much fun teaching together. She taught me so much. It was, I mean, oh my goodness. Talk about feedback. After every class I taught she would give me the feedback: okay, well this went well but you know you did this. That was weird, what were you thinking? I was like, oh my goodness. It's a humbling, it's really humbling when you have that kind of feedback. She was just really smart. She actually, I think, gosh, I think Liz Gray did start the women's center on campus. I mean, she with others, with others. It wasn't just her. 00:39:00So, she was this feminist. She was this really strong, she was always about being strategic in what you're doing. She was just very, very savvy that way. I learned a lot. Then she became an Associate Dean in our college for Academic Affairs and I'll remember that she would take me to coffee. She'd say, I think we have to, do you want to go to lunch? I knew that was because Megan had said something I shouldn't say or she would say, now Megan, you know, I think we need to talk about-it was just like oh my goodness. But I learned a lot about being a professional, how to be successful. I had a supportive chair who wanted me to do well. I had a department chair and I mentor so many faculty now and I feel very strongly about women in science and graduate students. I mentor women all over the world, to be honest with you, 00:40:00who haven't had this, my opportunities, I suppose, in a way in the sense of being supported. I literally had a department chair who, when I got pregnant, said to me, you know Megan, and she didn't have any kids herself, but she said, why don't you take intermittent leave, which is part-time leave. You have these three months of leave. To be honest, I didn't plan it this way, but I literally got married, I got tenure, let's see-I got tenure, I got married, I had a baby all in the same year.

MS: Oh, my goodness. That was a busy year.

MM: It was craziness. I had already been at OSU for like six years and I had built up all this leave time and then so the way, if you go on maternity leave or family leave, you use up all your accrued leave time. Well, I had a lot because I had been there for a long time, and it wasn't planned. I was able, 00:41:00basically with her support, and I will forever be grateful, she said instead of taking these three months of leave, because for an academic woman it's impossible to take three months off completely. You just, we're working at night. We're reviewing papers. If you want to move forward, there's this incredible pressure. You can't just take three months off, or the sense is you, somehow you jeopardize your career.

MS: Yeah, you know, once you have kids, then yeah.

MM: Mm-hmm. You're not committed. I once had a mentor say, oh yeah if the men have to leave early from a faculty meeting to go pick up their kids they're seen as a really involved dad. If a female has to leave early from a faculty meeting to pick up their kids they're seen as not being committed to their job.

MS: Yep.

MM: I think that continues.

MS: I think so, too.

MM: I don't have a lot of patience for it. I'm a senior enough faculty member that I really don't put up with it.

MS: Good, good. 00:42:00MM: I don't think that's the case in my college or in my department, or program, but I think that is very prevalent in the field.

MS: Well, especially maybe like, do you feel like other majors have that, like other programs and stuff have that more?

MM: Yes. Completely. My sister experienced incredible gender bias and discrimination to the extent that I almost really couldn't believe.

MS: Your older sister? The one that lives in Tennessee?

MM: Brand new baby and was told she had to teach every day of the week for the whole year with a brand-new baby. She didn't have time to breastfeed. Her chair said she'd come in and say well, I have some good news. And her chair literally said to her, for God's sake don't tell me you're pregnant again. Mm-hmm.

MS: Oh, my goodness.

MM: So, it's there. It's really there and it's really a 00:43:00problem. It's not in my field so much. I really have rarely experienced that kind of attitude. Sometimes I have. I have at OSU honestly, once I have experienced that from administration. Men who've been there for years and years and years and I think that has changed in the last five or eight years but I unfortunately did experience it there and I don't ever play that card because I've been really fortunate not to have experienced that.

MS: Do you think it's because your program and the field is more predominantly women-centered?

MM: It has.

MS: And still is?

MM: Psychology never was developmental-psychology has always been male-dominated, but for the last 20, 25 years, 30 years, it has become pretty much female dominated, but I cannot tell you how many-I was at the main conference the last time when we were in person and I met with-I counted-I had all these 00:44:00colleagues that wanted to have coffee with me. I was like, huh, why? I mean, I like you but why are all these people emailing me and wanting to get together for coffee. They were all women. They were all junior, and they all were struggling with career-family balance and gender issues and promotion and tenure issues. I was just shocked at how prevalent it is. I don't really believe it's just a hard science problem, because there are women all over the world in my field and they were all struggling and I just could not, I couldn't believe it. I felt pretty supported, but I even have experienced a little bit of that, but I've been so fortunate that I had supportive colleagues, I had people that wanted me to do well. I found mentors. I found mentors. They weren't given to me. I found mentors. Some of this is you got 00:45:00to make it work for yourself. I think that's a big part of it. But you know I think having my area of research that I was passionate about and having some really supportive colleagues, that was huge. It was really huge.

But I just want to mention the other one thing is, I'll never forget, and I think when I mentor faculty now, my chair at the time said: I think you should take that three months of leave and I think you should stretch it out to six. She voluntarily told me this. I never would have known you could do this. What I did was I worked part time (like I was going to anyway) because I was just tenured and I was trying to publish and I was an associate editor for a journal, I was involved in all these things. Well, I took part time leave for six months. I was able to spend that time, a lot of time, with 00:46:00my baby. I still, to be honest with you, working about 20 hours a week, then 30 hours a week, but it was so important for me to have that time with my baby at home.

MS: Yeah, well, and to be given the opportunity to still work as well because so many people I think feel like it's either family or work.

MM: Sorry, my son just came in-what? [Calls over shoulder to the other room]. He's talking to my husband instead. Yes. I mean I just, so when I hear about these women in other places and there's no flexibility. If you want to do anything other than 150%, this pandemic has hit working moms the hardest. There are no childcare subsidies at OSU to support these families. I mean, it is unbelievable. I have, I mean, we have struggled. I have two kids who are supposedly learning down the hallway. I can't tell you what the heck they're learning because there's not much going on. We're still trying to teach and do research and somehow 00:47:00be still as productive [air quote gesture]. There's this underlying expectation. I honestly cannot imagine. My kids are even older. I have a really supportive partner, husband. It's still, I think, a lot more needs to be done.

MS: Yeah.

MM: I will forever be grateful that I had that time with my babies, because if you really want to know what predicts it's the time and the opportunity and those high-quality interactions that you are able to have with your baby in the first few years of life that lay the foundation for so many important things. You know what, at the end of the day that's the most important thing in my life. I'm doing fine. You know, I have two endowed positions. I'm doing fine, but at the 00:48:00end of my life I care about raising great kids, human beings. I have a hard time with some of the things happening. I feel lucky that I was able to navigate my career well because I had a lot of support. My advisor was a man, and he was unbelievably supportive of women. My husband is unbelievably supportive of female faculty, in some ways more than female faculty, female department chairs that I have had (just saying). Not all of them. The one I had was unbelievably supportive and gave me time I felt so, I felt embarrassed and guilty telling my students that I was able to have that time with my kids. I mean it's crazy.

MS: Yeah.

MM: What kind of world do we live in?

MS: Because it should just be the norm.

MM: What I heard over and over was well if you have a child, it's really going to hit your productivity. I really reacted against that. I just found 00:49:00that I did not have that experience. I just found it to be really counterproductive. It pits people against each other instead of making change happen in positive ways.

MS: Right. Well, you've covered my question, my next one, which was going to be work-life balance.

MM: [Laughs].

MS: Good job!

MM: I don't know that I have it, honestly, but you know I think you have to be honest and authentic, and I do work a lot, but I also prioritize my kids and if it means that I work at night after they've gone to bed, which is typical, that's what it means.

MS: Yeah, that makes sense. With the research project, the kindergarten readiness thing, did you create those measures, or did you adapt them from other people? How was that process of getting to where we're at today with this project?

MM: Yeah, sorry I'm going to move my-I'm in the sun. Part of the research that I 00:50:00started out with the learning-related skills and then trying to figure out, well, what do we mean when we talk about that? Are they important? There's self-regulation. There's social skills. They seem to be important. They predict short and long-term outcomes, like wow. Okay. There's something about these skills that are important. But we didn't have really good ways to measure them. So, we always asked teachers. We asked parents. Those are useful but they also have bias issues. Parents are biased in different ways, although they know their kids are better than anyone. It can go both ways. Then my old advisor, he went to the University of Michigan, and he started saying, well there's that measure. He said, you should work with this student, another student, her name was Claire Cameron. We've been having 00:51:00this little head-to-toes measure and we think it could be kind of fun. I said, oh, well, can I try it out? It started there. Then Claire and I started collaborating and I caught a lot of data on it, and they got data. Then we wrote a grant about this measure, and we got the grant. That was our first head-toes-knee-shoulders measure. A grant that we got and that I said "Well, I was the PI on, and we did a lot of the work here at OSU and that was our first grant that went on for five or six years." Claire was my co-PI and then that led to-so we said, wow, this measure seems to work. There's something about it. It takes five minutes. It could be really useful and practical for people to use, for teachers. But we had to establish all of that first. That was the first grant. Then we tried it all over the world in 28 languages now around the world. 00:52:00Then we said, but there's some problems with this measure, as always, you know. It was really hard for some kids, low-income kids, kids that struggled with these skills, young kids. That's where we got the new grant to add to the measure. We got the HTKS-R, which is we added that section. Well, we had to go through all the work to do it and that's all that stuff you guys were involved in, you and others. Alongside of that, so I was really interested in developing measures to get these skills, assess these skills well in young kids. Because we had identified that these skills are important and they predict things, like if you graduate from college. That was a crazy paper that we got in the New York Times. It was super crazy. What do we do about this? Are these malleable skills? Can we improve them? That's where the intervention work started 00:53:00happening. That was Shauna Tominey, because Shauna Tominey was a grad student of mine who was like a superstar and she said, well I have these games I used to play with kids as a teacher and a musician. I remember, I'll never forget this meeting we had in Milam Hall when we were still in Milam Hall, and I said, "wait a minute these games you're talking about they sound like they could do, they're self-control or self-regulation games." I said, "do you think that we could make these games more about helping kids practice self-regulation?" That's where it started. She did her dissertation and then that led to more research and some funding and then that led to the next big grant that we are finishing up on our Red Light, Purple Light! and became a whole program. Now we keep testing it trying to say well 00:54:00is this working? Who does it work best for? Under what conditions? That's where we had these, and pretty unusually, honestly, it was crazy I got these big grants funded at the same time from the same federal agency, which was somewhat unusual and super overwhelming [laughs], but it was great. Then I had another grant funded by a foundation the same year and we were in Norway on sabbatical. But it worked out. We figured it out. We had a fantastic, amazing time in Norway.

MS: What did you guys get to do in Norway?

MM: Well, I was working on a really large intervention in Norway and so I was working with my colleagues. I was at the University of Stavanger. It's southwest Norway on the coast and working part-time on that study and then I was on sabbatical 00:55:00and writing papers. My husband was writing up his, working on his, he's in oceanography and he was working on his stuff from there. Our kids went to a British international school. My daughter was four, turning five and she came back with a British accent. It was very cute.

MS: I was going to ask that.

MM: Mommy [imitates British accents]. She would say, "Mommy." It was very cute, and my son just thrived. We were there for just six months. It was really fun. We traveled to, gosh, we went to-that trip we went to Germany and England and Denmark, Sweden. Bought a car from the Volvo factory. It was crazy. We had so much fun.

MS: That does sound like fun.

MM: It was super.

MS: Yeah, that's cool. Can you briefly describe the measures and how they relate to self-regulation, just for people in my class that may not really know what the games mean and stuff? 00:56:00MM: Yeah, so what we were trying to do was get at how to measure your ability to pay attention, remember instructions, so use your memory, and have some self-control. So, focus and attention, working memory, and demonstrating self-control. There was this game where the head-toes-knees-shoulders where you tell kids to touch their head and then touch their toes and then you say now, I want you to be a little different. Do something different-when I say touch your head, instead of touching your head I want you to touch your toes. Am I doing that right, Mikaela?

MS: Yeah.

MM: You have it down.

MS: You're doing it right. Good job.

MM: After you've given it 20 million times, it feels like. You have the kids do the opposite of what you ask them. That in and of itself, that little opposite Simon-says game asks them, they have to pay attention. They have to remember the instructions (that's memory), and they have to do something that's different. They have to show self-control because, right, because if they go towards the 00:57:00wrong, if you say touch your head and they go like this [touches head] that's wrong. But if you say touch your head and they go, oh, touch your toes instead, that's what we call a self-correct. They're getting it, but with young kids it's not fully there yet. You can tell. You can really see the wheels going, yeah, when you give it.

MS: Yeah, for sure. I know, there's always been a couple really small kids that blow me away. They make it so far in that game and I'm like oh, how are you doing this?

MM: What you see with kids is they got it, they got it, they don't have it [laughs], but that takes five minutes and it predicts how well you do in school academically on reading and math, which is pretty phenomenal because you could use it as a screener to identify kids who may not be ready for kindergarten or maybe have difficulty with reading and math and it's not just because reading and math that's important (you can assess them on that), but their ability to 00:58:00focus and pay attention allows them, right, to take in the academic content. Maybe if you focus on helping them make sure they can focus when they need to and pay attention and demonstrate self-control that's what most kindergarten tells you is the most important thing. Even now, my kids are struggling to keep focused on the screen and they're in fourth and sixth grade.

MS: Yeah. That's definitely important in all grades, I feel like, even in college. You've got to pay attention to your classes.

MM: That's right. That's the measure we are working on. I'll just quickly say that the intervention work is a fun music and movement game that kids play that include some of those things that help them practice stopping and thinking and doing something the opposite way. Those are all part of our intervention, and it really, literally helps kids practice these skills over time.

MS: Man, super cool things. Alright, I guess my last 00:59:00question, we've kind of touched on it a little earlier, but COVID-19 experience in your work. Obviously, I know a little bit about how it's affected some things, but other people watching this may not. How has this affected your work in the last year, your research, your daily life if you want to talk about that? Moving forward with plans and all that stuff.

MM: Well, from the research side as you know it's put everything on delay. You have to wait. It's been really, we work with kids in schools, or in childcare centers or preschools and they're just not there. They're not available. A lot of our work has been pushed back. Luckily, the two big grants we've had we were already finishing. It delayed one part of our project, but we may be able to get some of that data in the 01:00:00spring from teachers. I always feel very fortunate that I wasn't in the midst of-I have friends and colleagues that were doing a huge, randomized trial of an intervention in Portland Public Schools, well, there's no school. You can't implement an intervention during COVID. For me, we were just finishing up our work anyway. We were able to work on papers, work on other parts of our project, finishing up the work. That's been lucky.

The flame retardant study is another study on looking at the effects of these environmental chemicals on kids' school readiness. That's been delayed but, as you see, we're trying to adapt and see if we can have kids come and assess them outside or in big, with social distancing and all the protocols or remotely we might have to do some remote assessments. You try to pivot a little bit. 01:01:00Fortunately, in terms of my own research. I've been able to focus on other parts of it that didn't require me to do the data collection in the schools. At the Center, since I direct the Center and I manage the Hallie Ford Center, we've had all the protocols in place and people all mostly working remotely. We would have trainings. We were having all these trainings in social, emotional development or trauma-informed care or physical activity. These were just getting started and they were really successful for the Center. We've had to sort of stop for now. Some people are doing remote kinds of professional development opportunities, but that has been challenging. You know, I cannot complain too much. I think everybody, we're all experiencing challenges. There's certainly been a lot of overload in terms of administrative 01:02:00work and so this year I have a colleague who went on sabbatical. In addition to my work, half of my job is at the Hallie Ford Center and then half is in HDFS, in addition to me just being a professor teaching and teaching and doing all my research and directing a center I'm also co-directing our graduate program of 30 graduate students. That is on complete overload. That has not been super fun. I just think that it's no different than many other people. I feel fortunate that I can work from home. I feel fortunate that I have a job. I feel fortunate we have a big enough house that we can all work independently for the most part. I feel fortunate that we've been able to come together as a family and spend time together, my two kids and my husband and I. I think you try to see the silver linings. 01:03:00MS: Yeah. For sure. Well, that's good. I'm glad that you guys are able to do all of that. You sound very busy. Really, quick, right before we go-what is it like being like a director of the Center? What is your role? What are your responsibilities? I guess, what aren't your responsibilities if there's a lot of them?

MM: The Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families is focused on research and translation that help promote children and families. There's different research focuses on the center. There's early childhood. There's youth development. There's parenting. There's also physical activity and healthy eating and active living. My job is I have a leadership team, which is great. They're wonderful. I feel very collaborative, and we have a great team. My job as the director is to get projects moving, to get people to work together that would not 01:04:00maybe have worked together. The flame retardant study came about because I brought together different faculty a while ago. I would never have worked with someone doing flame retardant research. I was like, what is a flame retardant? What are we talking about and why should I care? It was literally like that. I brought together some people from really different backgrounds, and we started something new and exciting and that led eventually, it took a while, it led to a very big grant that we have now starting new synergistic kinds of projects as well as doing better to translate the really great work that's happening at Hallie Ford and at OSU out there for parents, teachers, families, childcare providers. That's where the trainings came in. We were really doing some great training for staff and teachers. They'd come to the center and get trained on some of our programs, really strong evidence-based programs that, you know, 01:05:00that we need to share with folks and get out there so that it might be useful to them. A lot of translational work. Different big projects housed in the Center.

Frankly, I try to move us forward. Applying for Center grants, for example, that will bring the whole center together under certain umbrellas or under certain areas of interest as it relates to early childhood or early learning, as it relates to children and families, parenting, big parenting education focus in the center. I do a lot of budgeting and administrative work. In addition to my own research projects, I also have staff and I'm trying to keep everybody employed, trying to apply for things so we keep people. It's just different pieces of my job, but super fun. I really love it. It's kind of a lot right now, but we all are there. 01:06:00MS: Well, that's super cool. You're a very busy woman and I'm grateful that I get to be a tiny part of your life [laughs].

MM: [Laughs]. Well, thank you for everything that you've been doing. I mean, you've been part of the projects for ever and ever.

MS: I know. It's so crazy how time has gone this fast.

MM: I know it's been really great. I feel like I feel so lucky to work with really good students that go on and do good things and they make us look good. So, you just keep it up!

MS: Thank you. Thank you. Well, do you think that there's anything that you want to touch on that we didn't touch on?

MM: No. I think we're good. I mean, I wish there was a little bit more focus on mentoring women, not just in the hard sciences. There's a whole project at OSU. It's mostly all about women in the hard sciences and how they are struggling. I said to my colleagues, you know women are struggling. I don't care what field you're in. 01:07:00Everybody, it's not just women. I'm just using this as an example, but we need a grant that focuses on women in any field that are trying to manage all these things because I still manage my family. I mean, my husband can do it, for sure, and he will, but I am often the connector and managing all the activities. I am on an airplane, kid you not, the doors are closing and I'm setting up a playdate for my kid. This is just normal.

MS: Yeah, I feel like women normally take on those responsibilities. It just kind of happens on top of everything else that they're doing. I'm sure that it would be great if all women, regardless of fields, could have the great mentors that you spoke about.

MM: Yeah, I just feel like there needs to be some real change institutionally and other kinds of change. We're getting there in some fields, but I feel like well, you don't really have it bad 01:08:00unless you're in engineering or in science, whatever science you're talking about. I really react against it, actually, because that's just not been my experience. But I feel very lucky that I get to work with fantastic, awesome women and other colleagues and I have great students who go on to do really awesome things and I get to connect with faculty and colleagues all over the world. I can't complain. I'm pretty lucky.

MS: Yeah. Well, I agree with all of that. Yeah, I think it would be great if we could get some change but I'm glad that you've ended up where you are today.

MM: Yeah, I've done okay.

MS: Yes, you have.

MM: [Laughs].

MS: Alright, I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording, but thank you for all of that. I'll end the meeting in a little bit, but I'll stop that.

MM: Of course. Of course.