Pipeline to Child Development

To expand racial and cultural diversity in the field of child development is vital to the welfare of all children, said Ayse Belger, PhD, director of UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG).

Marvin H. McKinney, PhD, former postdoctoral fellow at FPG and current member of FPG’s Executive Leadership Board, certainly agrees with this mindset, and is being honored with an enriching summer internship program that bears his name.

The Marvin H. Mckinney Scholars Program supports brilliant young scholars from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in pursuing careers in child development.

“We began to think about how we could create and support a pipeline of individuals from underrepresented communities into the work we do in terms of research, practice, and policy. We wanted to provide an opportunity for these students to find out how FPG contributes to positive outcomes for children and families,” said FPG’s equity, diversity and inclusion officer, Betsy Ayankoya, M.Ed.

“I’ve had a long-time commitment of 40 years supporting FPG, and I maintain that FPG can and should be the preeminent child development research center in the country, if not the world,” said McKinney. “I am so happy that this connection with HBCUs has been cemented.”

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