VT College of Science Magazine Annual 2014 | Page 6

Taking a
different path
I

t was never “if” you go to college, it was always “when you
go to college.” That was the primary message Martha Ann
Bell, professor of psychology, heard growing up as the oldest of four children in a family that had never had a college
graduate.

ally liked how she lived her life – she raised four children; she had a
career where she was really involved with the students, her classes,
and extracurriculars. It was easy for me to see how that meshed for
her. She was a widow whose husband died when her fourth child
was an infant. I saw her be an incredibly successful mother and faculty member and have a good time doing both.”

“It was part of the rhetoric,” Bell said. “My dad took courses at the
community college when I was in high school. He was a chemical
lab technician with a textile factory and there was no precedent for
going to high school, much less college, for my parents. The fact my
parents graduated high school was a huge deal for my grandparents.”

Watching Sanders form relationships with her undergraduate students got Bell thinking that being a college professor was what she
would like to do. But she realized she’d need to work for a while and
she wasn’t quite ready for grad school. At 28 years old, she started
her doctoral program alongside contemporaries who were mostly
22 and 23. She was 36 when she graduated, and by the time she was
40, she had started a tenure-track position at Virginia Tech.

Bell came to her field of human development late. Starting her
teaching career as a home economics instructor, she went on to get
a master’s in child and family studies from the University of Tennessee. When she moved to Maryland with her family, she discovered
her doctoral calling in the Department of Human Development at
the University of Maryland.
“My interests have always been in child development – but the child
development theories and the developmental psychology theories
are the same – and many people can go easily back and forth between developmental psychology and human development.“
Bell’s path as a nontraditional graduate student has provided her
with a highly sought-after point of view from students who have
questions about education and entering the workforce.
“A lot of undergrads talk to me and ask if they should go straight to
grad school or wait – and I’m the professor who always says ‘wait’
– go do something else first. I’m a believer in getting those other experiences first. From a faculty perspective, I enjoy having students
with more life experiences in class.”
In addition to being a role model for her current students, Bell has
benefitted from others during her own education, including Sarah
Sanders, a professor at her undergraduate institution, Carson Newman College in East Tennessee, who showed Bell that a woman
could have a career and a family.
“She’s the reason I became a professor,” Bell said. “I just thought she
had the best job in the world. I took several classes with her and I re-

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“I was fortunate to have great professors at the University of Tennessee and at Maryland. Nathan Fox was my doctoral mentor at Maryland and was very supportive of me as a nontraditional student,”
Bell said. “I had both my children as a grad student, and Nathan was
just an incredibly supportive mentor for someone at my stage of life
wanting to forge a different path. He continues to be supportive to
this day.” During grad school, Bell and a friend were pregnant at the
same time and delayed telling anyone. “Our mentors reacted very
differently. My friend’s mentor, a woman, said, ‘What are you thinking? How are you ever going to finish?’ While my mentor, Nathan,
said, ‘It’s about time – your daughter needs a baby brother or sister.’
It was a disappointing reaction for my friend.”
In the same way she received it, Bell offers support to her students
today as they progress in their educational careers. Her best advice
to a high school senior is straight forward. “If she hasn’t made up
her mind, I strongly advocate community college as a way to test
the water. If she’s made up her mind about going to college but not
sure where, campus visits and talking to lots of people is the way to
go,” she said. Either way, Bell recommends students first find faculty
members at the school they plan to attend and let it be known what
they want to accomplish. “I would suggest a female faculty member
for women simply because I had a great female role model as an
undergrad, but more important is making those connections early
in the freshman year, being involved with researc