UA Child Development Center names new director

The Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center at the University of Arkansas has named Shelley McNally as its new executive director of education programs. She will also serve as clinical assistant professor in the human environmental science department at the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

The center provides infant-to-preschool child care to about 100 students, allowing for real-world training for the UA’s family sciences students and serving as a research facility for faculty and graduate students.

McNally has worked either in child development or as a family and consumer science educator since 1998, according to a UA press release.

“I’m very pleased and excited to announce the appointment of Dr. McNally to the leadership of the Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center, as well as to the faculty of the human development and family sciences program in the School of Human Environmental Sciences,” Betsy Garrison, professor and director of the school, said in the press release. “She brings a wealth of experience and education to the center.”

McNally earned her doctorate in curriculum and instruction in early childhood education from the University of Toledo in 2016. She earned a master’s degree in human and consumer sciences and early childhood education from Ohio University in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in early childhood and elementary education in 1998, also from Ohio University. From 1998 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2011, McNally was a master teacher at Ohio University’s Child Development Center, according to the press release. From 2007 to 2009, she was a family and consumer science educator with Ohio State University for Vinton County. She led family and consumer science programming in the county, worked with other county agencies and groups, and developed and secured grant funding.

She has also worked as a first- and second-grade teacher at Children’s Discovery Center’s Discovery School in Toledo for the 2011-12 academic year and as a graduate assistant in the University of Toledo’s Department of Early Childhood, Physical and Special Education since 2012.

Open since 2012, the Tyson Child Development Center is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, placing it among the top 10% of private-sector childcare facilities in the nation, according to the press release.