Camille Catlett, MA, is a senior technical assistance specialist at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG). Within the early childhood field, she has held positions in the public school system, professional associations, federal government, and higher education settings, that ranged from direct service as a speech-language pathologist to director of multiple U.S. Department of Education personnel preparation grants. During her 20+ years at FPG, Catlett has led efforts in more than 30 states to incorporate explicit emphasis on children and families of diverse cultures, languages, abilities, and life circumstances in preservice and ongoing professional development efforts. And in 2006, she received the Mary McEvoy Award for Service to the Field from the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children.

As part of our FPG profile series, we recently spoke with Catlett to learn more about her work at FPG. Here’s what she had to say.

Tell us a bit about your professional journey―how did you become a TA specialist and what brought you to FPG?

I feel a bit like an interdisciplinary team. I’ve worked as a speech-language pathologist in a large public school system, as the coordinator of a federal grant-making program, and as a grant writer for a large professional organization. When one of my proposals was funded, I shifted to work as the Principal Investigator of a grant providing support to state teams in the early days of the new federal Part C legislation.

In 1992, I moved to North Carolina and joined Pam Winton in work on what would become a series of federally funded systems change projects designed to improve early childhood professional development in states. In 2004, along with a team of talented colleagues, I obtained funding to develop a model for systematically increasing the emphasis on cultural and linguistic diversity in blended teacher preparation (B-K) programs in North Carolina. The model, called Crosswalks, proved successful in changing both what faculty knew about diversity and what they explicitly and intentionally incorporated in their courses and field experiences.

The Crosswalks model was revised to reflect emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the revised Blueprint Process has been used to support enhancements to 34 higher education programs in 11 states. This fall, two new federally funded projects, SCRIPT-NC here at FPG and Bold Beginnings for Higher Education at the University of Toledo, will launch new projects using the Blueprint Process with six community colleges.

Describe a typical workday and tell us about the projects you're currently working on.

There’s really no such thing. Most days I spend some time with faculty colleagues at one of the programs I support, discussing content and instructional strategies that can increase the emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Emails take up a significant chunk of time and can range from simple asks (e.g., What’s the URL for the “catch a bubble” video?) to more complex requests (e.g., How can we engage faculty in our part of the country in increasing student preparation to support infants and toddlers?). And in between I write, develop presentations, and plan visits to the programs I’m working with.

What do you like most about your job?

The variety and the talented people I learn from and with.

What do you find most challenging?

Balancing multiple projects, volunteer work, and a personal life.

How does your work further the mission of FPG?

The values that I associate with FPG are generosity and collaboration; I work daily to demonstrate both. I endeavor to model generosity by sharing resources and ideas with colleagues in the U.S. and abroad and through volunteer efforts like the monthly BabyTalk listserv, which provides a monthly source of free, readily available resources for families and professionals. An early value that was instilled in my graduate program was the benefit of seeking out colleagues with different expertise to complement my own skill set. This value is reiterated daily in the partnerships among FPG colleagues. I’m sure this is one of the reasons that an earmark of projects I work on, like SCRIPT-NC, is the engagement of diverse campus and community partners to collaborate in envisioning what they want their early childhood graduates to know and be able to do.

What do you hope to have accomplished five years from now?

In some ways, that’s an easy question. I’ll be part of each of six new federally funded projects that will commence on October 1, so I hope to have successfully completed all of them.