Dr. Susan Walker and Ms. Rebecca Dinning were recently named Faculty Fellows by the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College.

Dr. Susan K. Walker, associate professor of psychology, and Ms. Rebecca S. Dinning, instructor in communication, have been named Faculty Fellows by the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College. 
 
The two will team up to teach a new interdisciplinary course in the spring of 2007 titled Children and the Media. The course will draw from materials of the Fred Rogers Archive, as well as other historic and current sources from the fields of child development and communication.
 
In this course, students will develop an understanding of the issues and research regarding children and traditional, as well as emerging, digital media. They will also learn about the ethics, policy, and law associated with the creation of children’s media. This three-credit course is a requirement for elementary instruction majors.
 
“We will be looking at media and its effect on emotional, social, moral and cognitive development. Fred Rogers very effectively addressed emotional, social, and moral development in young children ages 3 to 5,” Dr. Walker explained in terms of the course’s psychological perspective. She said the research-based course will focus on the development and influence of media on children from birth until age 12. Video games, advertising, cell phones, and other media influencing children will be included in the course.
 
Ms. Dinning said the class will examine clips from Mister Rogers Neighborhood, past shows like Howdy Doody to present-day mainstream children’s television shows. “They will learn about the politics involved in the creation and regulation of children’s television, particularly those involving the FCC (Federal Communications Commission),” Ms. Dinning said. “Our goal is to make sure the students understand current research in the field and keep up to date with it.”
 
She continued, “The course will be an overview of children’s media showing where we are today and will examine the question where do we go from here. As future educators, our students will know what they can do to help their students filter through the messages they receive through the media. We want our students to be able to help their students and their communities become critical thinkers about media, not just consumers of it, as soon as they are developmentally able to do that.”
 
Dr. Walker said she believes that she and Ms. Dinning will make a good team because of the different areas of expertise they bring to the class. “We are both very interested in media research, and we both have seen some of the effects of the media on our own and other children,” Dr. Walker said of their commonalities. Ms. Dinning added, “I think it’s a good balance to have the two of us working together.”
 
In their course development, Dr. Walker and Ms. Dinning are working with Br. David Kelly, O.S.B., Rogers Center archivist, and Ms. Hedda Sharapan, director of Early Childhood Initiatives at Family Communications, Inc., the Pittsburgh-based production company founded by Fred Rogers. They are also coordinating their work with that of Dr. Veronica Ent, chairperson of the education department at SVC, who was named a Rogers Center Faculty Fellow in fall 2005, and Ms. Christina Schmitt, adjunct lecturer in education. Dr. Ent and Ms. Schmitt have worked on the integration of content and materials from the Fred Rogers Archive in the courses Early Childhood Curriculum I and II.
 
The role of a Rogers Center Faculty Fellow represents a collaboration between the Center and the academic programs of the College, especially those programs based in the School of Social Sciences, Communication, and Education. Fred Rogers Center executive director William Isler noted that the course in Children and the Media is part of the Center’s ongoing commitment to mine the Fred Rogers Archive for new applications in education, media development, and other areas. “We are especially pleased that, through their integration of Fred’s work and that of other experts, Dr. Walker and Ms. Dinning will address in this course the critical importance of media literacy for educators and for children and their families,” Mr. Isler said.
 
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education has provided a grant of $99,200 to Saint Vincent College and the Fred Rogers Center for the project that includes support for development of this course. As the first initiative of the Rogers Center’s “Next Generation Leadership” program, the project is demonstrating the potential of the Fred Rogers Archive as a curriculum resource for undergraduate, graduate and other professional development programs in early childhood education and children’s media.
 
Dr. Walker has been a Saint Vincent College faculty member since 1987. She is a 1968 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology. She received a master’s degree in education and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Since 1971, she has been a certified school psychologist through the Pennsylvania Department of Education and a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania since 1980. She has been a school psychologist in both a school district and an intermediate unit. She was a former member of the Westmoreland County Mental Health/Mental Retardation Program Advisory Board. In addition, she is a member of the Council for Exceptional Children and the American Psychological Association.

Ms. Dinning earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in communication from Saint Vincent College in 1993. She later earned her master’s degree in communication and is currently finishing her doctorate from Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. While attending Regent, Ms. Dinning served as a doctoral fellow for the chair of her department. This appointment required Ms. Dinning to complete many hours of research within the area of media effects. As a result of this guidance and expertise, Ms. Dinning developed a tremendous interest in the research that focused on children and adolescents. This interest has been the motivation for several studies, conducted by Ms. Dinning, involving fieldwork with children and teenagers. Ms. Dinning has been a Saint Vincent College faculty member since 2004.

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