Faculty profile: Susan Maude

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A 28-year veteran of higher education, Susan Maude arrived at Iowa State in the summer of 2007. Since then, she has taught several classes and continued evaluating the professional development efforts of teachers and service providers who educate children with special needs. “We help faculty look at what they’re currently doing, identify their strengths, and also look at ways that they can make it better.”

 

 

Associate professor in human development and family studies (HDFS)

 

Maude has worked and taught all over the United States. Her previous stations include Indiana, Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Dubuque, Iowa. “I come from a family of 10 kids, so we didn’t travel a lot. I think some of the voyage has been an attempt to make up for the lack of travel in my youth.”

 

“What ISU offered was the infrastructure of support for teaching as well as research. I was [previously] the only person in my field in my department. Now I work with a team of almost 12 people here in HDFS who have similar passions, backgrounds, and interests. I have a graduate research assistant. I smile every day.”

 

“I like the interactions with students, especially when they’ve discovered something new that they might be interested in. That piece has been fun, to really see the students who go, ‘Oh, I get that now.’”

 

Maude is intent on increasing the cultural and linguistic spectrum of those working in her field. “We have a lot of Caucasian females as teachers in pre-school programs, and even more in our higher education faculty who work in the area of early childhood. We don’t have a lot of diversity, yet our children and families are increasingly growing more diverse. We need to build our own competence and capabilities to support all children and all families.”

 

A former vice-president of the Division for Early Childhood (DEC), Maude will begin a one-year term as president of DEC in July. An arm of the Council for Exceptional Children, DEC is a national organization dedicated to promoting policies and practices that aid the development of young children – and the families of children – with special needs. The organization holds its 24th annual conference in Minneapolis this October, and will feature several HDFS faculty members and graduate students.

 

“Even though my undergrad was at St. Mary’s and Notre Dame was across the street, and I’d been to many football games, I had never seen tailgating until I was here. This is at a whole different level. It was something that I just didn’t quite understand until I got here and saw it.”

 

 

"I would love to continue to build upon the good work that the folks here have been doing, and have been known for, for a long time. If the piece that I can add ... complements that bigger picture of what everyone's working on, that, to me, would be a great success."