Ep. 122 - What is the MA in Child, Adolescent, and Family Studies?

In this episode of the CSUSB Advising Podcast, Matt Markin sits down with Dr. Stacy Morris, Director of the Master of Arts in Child, Adolescent, and Family Studies, to unpack the heart of this dynamic graduate program. Dr. Morris shares her journey as a first-generation college student, breaks down what students actually learn in the program, and explains how CAFS prepares graduates to shape the systems, schools, and communities that support them.

You’ll hear about evening courses designed for working professionals, the application process, and the resources available to students. Whether you’re an undergrad exploring next steps, a professional working with youth, or someone who wants to make a real difference in the lives of children and families, this episode offers clarity, inspiration, and a glimpse into a program built on intention and impact. 🌱📚

Check out the MA CAFS Program website for more information!

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Well, hello and welcome back to the CSUSB Advising Podcast. This is Matt Markin, an academic advisor here at Cal State, San Bernardino, and today our episode, we're going to learn a lot more about the Master of Arts in Child, Adolescent and Family Studies. And to unpack all of that, is our special guest, Dr. Stacy Morris, the director of the program. Dr Morris, welcome.

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Matt Markin  
And before we jump into everything about this graduate program, I like to start off asking you about, if you can chat a little bit about your journey and path in higher ed, what was your origin story?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I am a first gen college student, and so I like to start with that, because I think that that really did inform the way that I've navigated higher ed and even as a professor today, I think it's impacted me. I think I always knew I wanted to be working with children in some way. From the time I was 12, I was babysitting, you know, infants, which I would never let a 12 year old babysit infants now, but you know, I was always working with kids different capacities. And I went to college thinking, you know, I would work with kids some way work in psychology. You know, people like to tell me their problems. So I had some general idea of what psychology was. And then I learned about developmental psychology, and that combined my two interests. And in college, I needed a work study job, and so it was either, you know, working at the library or the coffee shop, or I got an opportunity to work with a professor on his research. And I think I've been a nerd from, you know, from from birth, basically. So I was excited to get started on working with a professor and learning more about my field. And really honestly, I didn't know what you could do with a bachelor's degree in psychology. And I was focusing in on developmental psychology, which is related to our field. And I didn't know what you could do with a master's I thought there was no way I could pay for a master's degree, and eventually I'm going to need to get a PhD, you know, and I just didn't really have anyone to go to to really talk through all of those things. And professors were really scary to me, even though I was working with one, he was very, very nice, but I just didn't know how to ask the questions that I didn't know I needed to ask. So I got into a PhD program, and I think I was very, very lucky that it led me to a job that I'm super happy with, but along the way, I really wish that I had had, you know, faculty to talk to, or people to help advise me, because I was just really kind of single mindedly going after I need to do this, because this is what I need for my career. And I didn't know all the other routes that were possible, and funding for those routes as well.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I know some students can feel a little intimidated at times talking to their professors, but who knows, maybe cedar will be listening to this episode and be like, You know what? Dr Morris sounds very nice, and I've learned a lot from this episode. I'm going to go and reach out to her and get some more information. So I guess kind of rolling into that. You know, this is an episode about the MA in Child, Adolescent Family Studies. So if a student was was like, Hey, Dr Morse, can you tell me more about this program? What would be your answer?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, I start with, you know, what do you want to do in the future? And I think, you know, our undergrad degree is great because students leave, I think, really knowing how to work hands on with young people in ways that are actually supportive for their development and their well being. And in a master's program, we step that up a notch. You get prepared to work with young people, but what's really exciting is that you also get to be prepared to work with others who will be working with young people. So you kind of get to pave the way for how we're doing things with with kids and with adolescents, how we're parenting, how we're educating them, how we're working with them, and after school programs, any of the things that are leading the way for how we try to create a positive future for kids and families.

Matt Markin  
I guess an important question I think students usually have is going to be like, well, what's the application process like? What? What's the admission requirements for this program?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, yeah. We, we go through Cal State apply. So I think folks would be familiar with that if they are coming from CSUSB, and we do require transcripts from every university that they've attended. Unofficial is fine at the time of application, and then if they get admitted, we require official transcripts. We ask for a three letters of recommendation. Two have to be from faculty. And I would encourage. Folks, even if they've had a gap in talking to Professor that they really liked, reach out to those faculty. We expect students to ask us for letters of rec and so don't feel like you know if too much time has passed or you didn't know them very well. I would just ask them and tell them you know your career goals and how they could really help you with those and then we ask for a personal statement, which is, is, you know, tough to write, because it's condensing, kind of your your life story and your career story into a couple pages. So I would ask for help with that as well, if anyone's interested. I'm always happy to talk through the process, and we hold info sessions on how to do the application, but really it's like an annotated resume where you get to say, here are the things that I've done, here's what's going to prepare me for grad school, and here's why I'm selecting this program specifically. We also require that our students come in having taken some kind of child development course that could be under a different degree. So if you've taken a developmental psychology course, that's okay. We require that they've taken a research methods course and a statistics course as well. And if students haven't taken those at the time that they're applying, that's completely fine. They can get conditionally admitted and take that at a community college or at CSUSB before actually entering the program.

Matt Markin  
You know, you kind of talked a little bit about, when I was asking about how you would answer a question in terms of a student wanting to know more about the program. And so you kind of talked a little bit about maybe some things that they'll be learning in the program. So with this question, if you want to maybe expand on it a little bit, but with the coursework students are taking, not they have to go through every single class. But could you talk a little bit about what they're learning in their coursework, or even how a graduate course is going to differ from maybe the undergraduate courses that they might be used to?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, yeah. I wanted to also highlight that our courses, they run in the evening, so we're an in person evening program, really to cater to most of our students who are actually working with kids when they're they're going through the program. But the the courses cover different topics, different domains of development. So we are covering things like social and emotional development, things like emotion regulation and how to support that in kids, how to build up positive peer relationships. We cover cognitive things, so how kids learn to process their world, and how they learn to create goals and follow through with those goals. They're learning about language. They're learning about families and so a lot of the different topics that would would cover, you know, how children develop positively and how we can provide supportive contexts. And then we also have some of the more like assessment related things. So how do you go into a classroom and assess kids for challenges or where they're at developmentally, we have research methods and stats and qualitative things where we can learn how to actually research different topics in the field as well. And so we've got a lot of different courses that cover that those concepts and the courses are going to look different in that in undergrad, you're getting a lot of different topics, but in a very small level. So you get breadth, but you don't really get depth as much as you would in a master's program. So in our master's program, we are going into detail in all of these things, we're building up a level of expertise so that when people graduate, our students, our alumni, can go in and really be experts in the field to determine how we're interacting with and how we're shaping programs to work with young people. And so there's a lot of there's a lot of reading in the courses. You might be reading empirical articles, you might be reading blog posts or journals or watching videos in preparation for class. Time you're going in and discussing, you know, the complexities and the critiques of the field, and getting a sense of how to communicate in this field as an expert. And then we're working on, you know, projects and or theses and things that can build up our students expertise so that they can take an area of development that they really specialize in.

Matt Markin  
That sounds amazing, and with this next question, sometimes there's misconceptions that one might have. You know, I always tell students, you know, you always want to reach out to that coordinator or the faculty member and get more information or contact a specific department. Sometimes students might hear information from other students or family members, or what they find online. So are there misconceptions that students might have, whether it's about, generally about child, adolescent, Family Studies, or specifically within, like the degree program?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
I was trying to think about this, and honestly, I think the people looking. For our degree, have already kind of bought into the idea that it's important to be thoughtful and scientifically minded with working with kids. So I think a lot of the the misconceptions come from people outside of the field who don't know what we do and think, you know, working with kids is just intuitive, or that the field is just babysitting, you know, and really the ways that we're working with children are intentional. They're backed by decades and decades of research on how to support young people and, you know, how to scaffold context that are really going to help them develop skills that they need to grow and to learn and to continue their learning on their own. So I think a majority of the misconceptions of the field come from people who have not already bought into the idea that, you know, kids deserve really intentional support. And I think you know, if anyone walks past the infant toddler lab school that we have on campus, you can see people in that context are working with kids in a very special way. Even as a professor, my my expert at my area of expertise is working with teenagers. I learned things just from walking past there, you know, at the center where our students are are trained and get expertise and experience, getting to apply their their work in the field.

Matt Markin  
And last question about resources. So let's say a student is in your program. Are there any resources that your department offers?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, absolutely. The thing that I really love about our department is that we're very intentional about trying to scaffold up resources for our students. We all learn about how children and humans grow. And so we really apply that in our department. And so we have built up a ton of resources, and we're constantly in process of trying to build more resources. So as students enter in a cohort model right now, meaning they come in as a group in the fall, altogether, they go through orientation, where we provide resources to them about how to navigate the program. We're in the process also of developing some like intro one unit classes on how to navigate a master's program in general, what skills you need. That's why I always mentioned that I'm a first gen college student, because I think like a first gen college student, and what I would have needed through grad school and and trying to improve the program. And so we've got a one unit course on how to navigate the program. We've got a one unit course that we're also developing for how to navigate their culminating experience. So whether that's a comprehensive degree exam, a thesis or a project that they'll be developing. We've got that course to navigate that they're all paired with a First Year Mentor, a faculty mentor, so they'll work with faculty throughout their time in the program, but they're paired with a specific advisor to help them figure out how to navigate that I put on a semester, semesterly, every semester writing accountability group for students to to make progress on their coursework, and then also in their in their program, culminating degree or experience. Sorry, and so, yeah, we, we got those resources right now. I'm sure I'm forgetting some and we're also constantly building up resources for students.

Matt Markin  
Awesome, and of course, we'll add the link in our show notes to your department website. I know I said that was last question, but actually this will be towards the end of this recording. But is there anything else that you want to tell listeners, students, about the program? Let's say there's an undergraduate that's interested in what what I want to do afterwards, and I want to learn more information. Or there's any info sessions or any contact information you'd like to share?

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the thing that I would like to leave folks with is, you know, if you if you see a better path towards, you know, how you want the world to work, if you want to make a difference in your world, I really feel like this degree is where we're able to start to chip away at that. I think we as a field, are working towards trying to create better, safer places for young people, and that means like places that affirm them, that support their health, their mental health, their well being, that looks at young that look at young people like full people and humans, And by investing into young people in developmentally appropriate ways. We are raising a generation of young people who hopefully become, you know, well adjusted, caring, purposeful adults. And so I would say that an important thing to think of is that, you know, if you really care about shaping the way that our world functions, this is. One way that we can do that, and I see that in the students that I work with and that I connect with in our program, the ways that they're making a difference in their students lives and the young people that they work with, the way that we're all kind of unpacking and undoing generational trauma, trauma that we might have experienced by doing better for the kids that we get to work with, and by the faculty who are going into the communities and using our information, using our research and our expertise to support and improve the lives of children in schools and after school programs in the inland, Inland Empire. So I think if y'all are interested in making a difference, I think this is one way that we can do that anyone's always welcome to reach out to me, email they can call me. I hold info sessions regularly throughout the semester. Those will be posted soon, and I'm always happy to talk through people's career paths or their ideas about whether or not this is a good fit for them. Yeah, I'm happy to help, and I'm here for that.

Matt Markin  
Love it. Well. Dr Morris, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and sharing this great information.

Dr. Stacy Morris  
Yeah, thank you for taking the time. I'm excited to see who comes through the door to talk about the program.