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Among her many roles as a professor, Lynch School of Education Professor Lisa Goodman cherishes that of mentor to her graduate students, who she guides through their academic growth but also in their development as “change makers.”
“I want them to gain the confidence and skills in the areas they have chosen to study,” said Goodman, who teaches in the Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology Department. “But with doctoral students we spend a ton of time together, talking and writing and thinking. I really enjoy getting to know where they are strongest and where I can help them get to that point of strength as they pursue their chosen careers.”
That passion for empowering her graduate students to effect change earned Goodman a 2014 Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award, presented annually to faculty who have inspired students to work to benefit society. Goodman was one of 10 recipients recognized with the award last year.
The Beckman Awards honor educators in the preferred fields of psychology, medicine, and law who have inspired their students to create an organization which has demonstrably conferred a benefit to society or who has established a lasting basis, concept, procedure, or movement of comparable benefit. Recipients receive a $25,000 one-time cash award from the Gail McKnight Beckman Trust.
A distinguished researcher in the areas of intimate partner violence, supports for survivors and innovative mental health practices for low-income women and families, Goodman said it was an honor to be acknowledged for that aspect of her work she holds most dear.
“To be recognized for the very exact thing that matters the most to you in your professional life is really thrilling,” said Goodman, a 15-year faculty member at Boston College. “This recognizes the relationships I develop with my students and that’s very affirming.”
Goodman is the second current Lynch School faculty member to receive a Beckman Award. Augustus Long Professor of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology Janet Helms was honored in 2011.
Goodman was nominated by one of her “change makers,” Lynch School alumna Rachel Latta, MA ’01, PhD ’08, a leading clinical research psychologist who focuses on intimate partner violence. Latta worked extensively in the US Department of Veterans Affairs system, and founded and directed the Safing Center at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, Mass., where she pioneered new approaches to working with veterans who perpetrated domestic violence.
“One of Lisa’s real strengths is she sees students as whole people,” said Latta, who is now the director of trauma initiatives at the Center for Social Innovation in Needham, Mass. “She sees everything as interconnected, she cares about you as a person and she wants to know everything that is going on.”
Latta said when she entered the doctoral program she would not have predicted she would have ended up working for an agency like the VA. Her focus was on community mental health services. But Goodman’s counsel led her from a research project to full-time work and a leadership role in the VA’s approach to intimate partner violence.
“Lisa helped me translate that initial work into a practice and a career,” said Latta. “I ended up really falling in love with it.”
Goodman cites her mother, Joan Goodman, an educational psychologist who recently retired as a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, as her inspiration – her “guide” through life. Joan Goodman has always placed an emphasis on getting to the heart of the matter.
“My mom always kept me focused on the ‘So what?’ question,” said Goodman. “Which is what I always use with my students: ‘So what?’ really asks ‘What really matters here?’”
Goodman said she plans to use the $25,000 prize to help support her graduate students’ research interests.
“It seems fitting to use it to help students take the next steps in their careers,” said Goodman.