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Dear Alumni, Friends, and Supporters,
Welcome to the HDFS Connections newsletter. We are eager to share the latest department news during this exciting time for Human Development and Family Sciences.
Our centers serve the community through education, research and outreach initiatives. Help continue to make an impact by donating to the Center for Adolescent Resiliency, Child Development Research Center and Center for Early Head Start.
This semester was filled with many achievements made by students and faculty. I encourage you to read the below news, which showcases the fall 2022 graduate students defending their dissertations, introduction to new faculty and their research focus and a spotlight on the accomplishments done by the HDFS Graduate Student Association.
Your support is crucial to the success and mission of the department. Whether it's mentoring and providing advice, offering internships, sharing your story with the college, or investing in the department, your support makes a huge difference.
Enjoy reading our updates and wonderful news from our department!
Dana Weiser, Ph.D.
Department Chair, Associate Professor
Human Development and Family Sciences
College of Human Sciences
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Center for Adolescent Resiliency
The Center for Adolescent Resiliency (CAR) programs cultivate the self-care and self-leadership that adolescents need to thrive as individuals but also as members of diverse communities. The Center works with families, schools, and community partners to provide direct intervention, staff development, and youth teambuilding.
CAR programs align with undergraduate and graduate education at TTU through
service learning, internships, and practicum assignments. TTU students also have a variety of opportunities to engage with CAR as program volunteers.
The Community Advocacy Project for Students (CAPS) program supports both students and schools when students transition from alternative education settings back to their mainstream middle or high school campus. Challenges to a successful transition include falling behind academically, returning to negative influences from peer groups, and the inability to adjust to a less structured environment. Both students and schools benefit from a smooth transition back into the traditional classroom setting.
The United Future Leaders (UFL) program is designed to actively engage adolescents in the development of character, ethics and civility as well as to develop young citizen leaders. UFL utilizes hands-on learning activities, mentoring experiences, intentional relationship-building, and community service to guide youth in building knowledge, skills, and abilities; to motivate students to effectively lead themselves and others; and to promote healthy personal development.
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Christine Devitt and Helen Devitt Jones Child Development Research Center
The Child Development Research Center provides educational programs based on current research for 110 children aged six weeks to six years. The CDRC seeks to provide a model developmentally appropriate program; to provide instructional experiences to TTU students; to provide a site for research for graduate students and faculty who study the development and behavior of young children; and to serve as a model to other programs.
The CDRC provides instructional experiences for students in implementing developmentally appropriate experiences for young children, setting up learning environments, developing adult/child interaction strategies and using observations as the basis for developmental assessments.
The CDRC is a laboratory early childcare environment that supports research conducted with young children. While children learn through play, interacting with their environment, peers and adults, researchers learn from them. Observation rooms with one-way mirrors allow researchers to view the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of children.
The CDRC also serves as a model early childhood program for the South Plains community, demonstrating best practices and the latest research in the field of early childhood education and development. The Center provides tours and training sessions and hosts a conference each spring led by CDRC staff and includes demonstrations in the CDRC classrooms and on the playground.
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TTU Center for Early Head Start
CEHS is a full-day, year-long federally funded and nationally accredited child care program located in East Lubbock, serving 72 infants and toddlers aged 6 weeks to three years alongside a home visiting program serving 24 pregnant mothers and young children. CEHS seeks to promote school readiness by nurturing the physical, emotional, social, language, and cognitive development of infants and toddlers; develop and strengthen families' abilities as primary educators of their children; and serve as advocates for children and families in a program that is supported by and supportive of state-of-the-art research.
Students have many fruitful opportunities to learn and work at CEHS as lab students, practicum students, volunteers, paid student assistants and in HDFS service learning classes. Faculty and graduate students carry out research projects at CEHS in a variety of areas (child development, literacy, family dynamics, nutrition, interior design, landscaping); they also serve on CEHS governing bodies and provide consulting in their areas of expertise.
CEHS provides high quality childcare to families in East Lubbock, free of charge, so they can work and study while their children receive the close attention of two credentialled teachers in small groups of eight children. Children receive vision and hearing screenings and developmental assessments while parents have the opportunity to work with family specialists on finding employment, training, schooling and resources for their families. Located in a renovated school building at 3315 East Broadway, recently gifted to Texas Tech, CEHS offers a carefully designed developmentally appropriate playground for infants and toddlers to enjoy alongside their families.
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|  | Woosang Hwang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Woosang Hwang, Ph.D., recently joined the Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS) program as an assistant professor. Hwang previously served as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Geneseo from 2018 to 2019 and a postdoctoral fellow in the Aging Studies Institute at Syracuse University from 2019 to 2022. He is currently teaching Contemporary Families, HDFS 3320.
Hwang's research focuses on the association between intergenerational solidarity with digital communication and family well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and South Korea. He said the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent social distancing have accelerated trends toward greater use of digital communication between generations, putting the potential benefits of these new forms of interaction into high relief.
| |  | Jennifer Rose, MSW, Ph.D., Instructor
My name is Jennifer Rose, and I am excited and grateful to return to Human Development and Family Sciences at Texas Tech after completing my Ph.D. This semester I have been an instructor for Lifespan Human Development and next semester I will be teaching Families in Crisis. I have a bachelor’s degree in Marriage, Family, and Human Development from Brigham Young University (2001-2006), a master's degree in social work (MSW) from Brigham Young University (2007-2009), and a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Sciences from Texas Tech University(2016-2021). I have previous clinical experience as an emergency room crisis worker and research experience as a graduate research assistant. My research focus is on child and family resilience, with the purpose of understanding how individual, family, and community levels of resilience interact with child developmental trajectories in promoting positive outcomes. Much of my research has focused on the Family Stress Model, with an emphasis on moderating factors of risk and resilience across stress pathways. I love spending time with my husband and four children (ranging in ages from 4 to 15). Some of my favorite activities are journaling, hiking, photography, and cooking.
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The Graduate Student Association has been actively engaged with the community outside of their classrooms and research labs this semester! During the Community Wide Family STEM Night, they hosted a table where K-12 students and families played games to learn about the workings of their minds and to get an introduction to the field of human sciences.
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The GSA organized a wildly successful gift drive benefitting the 96 infants and toddlers at TTU Center for Early Head Start, introducing innovations with a website and Venmo payment that made it easier than ever for faculty, staff, students, and community members to make donations.
The GSA had several initiatives focusing on enhancing collegiality and reducing isolation. They hosted an open space for students to gather to watch virtual colloquia; they distributed information on mental health resources and Diversity-Equity-Inclusion events to students; and they provided a list of LGBTQ+ friendly healthcare providers and businesses to new students.
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|  | Jessica Blume
Dissertation: Early Joint Attention and Social Communication: A Telepractice Parent-Mediated Intervention
Advisor: Ann Mastergeorge, Ph.D.
Biggest takeaway from research: By providing parents with a strong foundation of early social skills knowledge, building their confidence as play partners, and fostering a collaborative coaching alliance, all children can discover new ways to express their inner curiosity, joy, and growing personalities.
Next steps: I am grateful to be serving as Assistant Director of Global Health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
| |  | Christine Neugebauer
Dissertation: Examining the Emergence of Mother-Infant Dyadic Synchrony in the NICU Context
Advisor: Ann Mastergeorge, Ph.D.
Biggest Takeaway from research: One-third of mothers spent an extended duration of time in unfocused nurturing interactions with their infants due to their attention directed toward their smartphones. Mothers need opportunities for uninterrupted time to engage in nurturing encounters with their infants in the NICU.
Next Steps: I will continue as the Manager of Integrative Care services at Covenant Children’s Hospital and intend to engage in scholarly research endeavors focusing on family relational processes in the NICU.
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The National Council on Family Relations
The National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference was held in Minneapolis where Texas Tech HDFS was well-represented with 4 undergraduate students, 11 graduate students, and 9 faculty members. Students and faculty led 18 posters, presentations, roundtables, workshops, special sessions, and meetings at the conference.
Derek Morgan won the student poster award for the Sibling Relationships Focus Group and Emma Willis-Grossmann won the student poster award for the Latino Research Focus Group. Dr. Christy Rogers received the Families and Health Section Professional Paper Award and Dr. Woosang Hwang won the New Professional Issues in Aging Focus Group Award.
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Faculty Shout-Outs
Dr. Christy Rogers' research activities received recognition at the National Council on Family Relations in Minneapolis, MN., in November 2022. Dr. Rogers was honored with the Health and Families Section Professional Paper Award for her paper, "The role of early attachment and parental presence in adolescent behavioral and neurobiological regulation," which was published in the journal of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. In addition, her graduate student, Derek Morgan, received the Sibling Relationships focus group student poster award for his presentation, "Younger sibling warmth as a buffer between emerging adult prospective uncertainty and substance use."
Monica J. Martin- 2022-23 TTU College of Human Sciences nominee for the Chancellor's Council Distinguished Teaching Award
Woosang Hwang was awarded the NCFR New Professional Issues in Aging Focus Group Award for "Young Adults' Intergenerational Solidarity with Grandparents in Emerging Adulthood: Associations with Providing Support to Older Parents in Established Adulthood."
Malinda Colwell- Integrated Scholar 2022:
Bentley, G. E., Thomas-Jackson, S. C., Nelson Goff, B. S., & Piland, N. (2022). Ambiguous loss and coping strategies in couples raising a child with Down syndrome: A qualitative directed content analysis study. Medical Research Archives, online 10(10), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v10i10.3267
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