Amy Reschly2015 Rising Alumni
Amy Reschly is a full professor and the coordinator of the school psychology program at the University of Georgia. She is a leading scholar in the areas of student engagement, high school completion, and family engagement in multi-tiered systems of support. She has edited two books, published 35 peer-reviewed articles and is the incoming editor of School Psychology Review, one of the most influential and widely read journals in her field. Her scholarship and leadership will be influential in the field of school psychology for years to come.
Employer
Professor, Coordinator School Psychology Program
University of Georgia
CEHD Degree
M.A., Educational Psychology;
Ph.D. Educational Psychology
What was the impact and benefit of your educational experience in CEHD?
I am so grateful for the education I received at the University of Minnesota. It isn’t just the historical significance or the perennial high-rankings of CEHD programs, but also working with and learning from luminaries in the field and the camaraderie I had with fellow graduate students. In fact, my closest and favorite colleagues are still fellow MN graduates. I had the privilege of learning one of the few empirically-supported dropout intervention programs (Check & Connect) and CBM and problem-solving directly from the developers (Christenson and Deno, respectively) in the location in which these innovative programs were created. That kind of education and mentoring – in developing a research program, modeling scientific decision-making and ethical behavior – is priceless.
What's your favorite memory from the University of Minnesota?
My advisor, Sandra Christenson, is kind of responsible for my marriage to fellow CEHD grad, Dr. James Appleton. Sandy was also his advisor, but I had only met him a couple of times. The three of us were working on a paper – I was in South Carolina, James and Sandy were at the U. At some point there were some decisions that needed to be made under a very rigid deadline – James and I ended up having to speak over the phone one evening. And then we spoke again the next night. And the rest is history. We have a framed copy of the paper we were writing hanging on our wall.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
There was a period of time in junior high in which I thought I wanted to be a dentist or an medical doctor. My parents are professionals in school psychology and special education. My senior year in high school I shadowed a school psychologist who worked at the Iowa Department of Education and Iowa State. Thus, I think I was considering school psychology as a potential career even before leaving high school. However, I waited to declare a psychology major and even spent a year working in public schools as a paraprofessional prior to attending graduate school, just to be sure.
When you have 30 minutes of free time, what do you do?
I have two children – my daughter is 17 (she was 8 months old when I started graduate school) and my son is 12 (I had him soon after my preliminary oral exam). It seems like my free time is typically spent on a field or in a gym (e.g., cross country, basketball, baseball). However, I do love to read novels, memoirs, the NY Times, and a variety of magazines.
What gets you excited about work?
I really enjoy mentoring doctoral students and supervising their research.