Healing Young Minds: Kaleigh Dumbach '10
Kaleigh Dumbach has an ambitious vision for the New York City public schools. She wants to see an end to the narrow curricula and punishing rules that force teachers and students to engage in constant preparation for the next standardized test. She wants to see national and local policies that treat teachers as professionals and promote more progressive and equitable criteria for evaluating teachers, schools, and students. And she wants to see every school as a community center actively reaching out to troubled students and disadvantaged families, breaking down the stigmas attached to mental health care, and providing psychological counseling to any child who needs it.
An urban-studies major with a concentration in education and a minor in psychology, Kaleigh hopes to eventually earn a PhD in either school psychology or educational policy. She is considering a career as a school psychologist-the profession that lies at the nexus of her dual interests in reforming public education and providing mental health care to underserved communities. This past summer and fall, she says, she completed an internship that showed her "how the counseling process works and how satisfying it is to make that personal connection while working one-on-one with people." During her internship at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, Kaleigh worked on a study of firefighters, police officers and others who were first responders at the World Trade Center on 9/11. The study examined the trauma those rescuers experienced, and how their suffering has affected their children's mental health.
Also this past year, Kaleigh has served as a peer counselor and peer advocate at the Barnard-Columbia Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center. Meanwhile, she's been honing her teaching skills by serving as a Barnard Writing Fellow. It's wonderful, she says, to work students who are taking fascinating courses, and to help each advisee clarify her understanding of a subject, define her arguments, and perfect the paper she ultimately submits.
Kaleigh also used her expert writing skills as a Columbia Daily Spectator reporter during her first two Barnard semesters, and in an internship the summer before her sophomore year. That summer, working in the Washington, D.C., office of Senator Charles Schumer, she wrote reports summarizing research she was assigned on issues and legislation, and helped draft letters to constituents.
"A lot of the policy change I want to see is going to happen through electoral politics. So I wanted to see how things work in Washington--how the policymaking process works," Kaleigh says. "I went to a lot of hearings and briefings, and found it fascinating. It opened my eyes to how much goes into making one small policy change."
Among those eye-opening experiences were hearings on a bill that would have changed funding for sex education. Federal law currently allows funding for organizations and school systems teaching abstinence only, Kaleigh says. Planned Parenthood, many school systems, and other entities offering education on contraceptives are ineligible for support. To her dismay, Kaleigh saw the new bill go nowhere.
"The lesson to me, as an advocate of reform, is that to make change in Washington, you have to be forceful, make a very strong case, engage in powerful lobbying, and work with elected officials one on one," Kaleigh says.
While she grew up in Ohio and will surely take more trips to Washington, Kaleigh says New York will remain her home base in the years to come. She loves the city, and plans to immediately follow her Barnard education with a teaching post in a local public school. She'll also continue her leisure-time pursuits of cooking for friends, exploring neighborhoods, and enjoying what she calls "the multitude of fabulous restaurants and cultural opportunities you have, going uptown or downtown, with a $2 MetroCard."
Named a Williams Scholar for two consecutive years, Kaleigh receives scholarship support from The Constance Hess Williams '66 Fund for Women in Politics.
—Anne Schutzberger
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