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Congratulations to Dr. Michelle Taylor, Associate Professor in the Child and Family Studies program, for being selected as a grantee -- a competitive, one-year funding opportunity that supports teaching innovations designed to prepare students to learn, adapt, and thrive in the modern workforce. Dr. Taylor is one of 45 faculty selected across 22 CSU campuses.  

Dr. Taylor’s CSU LIFT grant, entitled “Workforce-Ready Foundations: Updating Child Development Coursework for Modern Career Paths,” focuses on making durable skills visible in Child and Family Studies coursework, specifically revising curriculum to emphasize critical thinking, equity and inclusion, and technological literacy that help prepare students for their future careers.   

“������ is committed to preparing students for workforce readiness by explicitly connecting their classroom learning to real-world transferable skills students can articulate to future employers,” said Dr. Taylor, who added that a major source of inspiration for her LIFT project was from a Leadership Fellows project published by the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences Chair Dr. Virginia Gray, entitled “Layering Pedagogy with Skills for Today’s Workforce.”  

“The Child and Family Studies program, along with many degree programs in our department, is inherently practice-based and applied, making it well-suited for such a project.”  

As part of her CSU LIFT grant, Dr. Taylor plans to update course curriculum and assignments to align with the durable skills identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers as the most important competencies for the emerging workforce. Assignments will focus on job searching and articulation through personal reflections, project-based activities (e.g. community resource mapping), and resume building, as well as mock interviews. The yearlong project includes a fall 2026 planning phase followed by spring 2027 implementation with pre- and post-assessments to measure student perceptions of the implemented changes. 

“The goal is to use the knowledge and expertise gained from conducting the LIFT project to enhance all courses across the CDFS curriculum,” Dr. Taylor said. “The Child and Family Studies program prepares students for diverse career paths, with approximately half pursuing work in educational settings and the other half seeking roles supporting families and communities or pursuing specialized fields like social work, marriage and family therapy, and speech-language pathology.”  

Currently Dr. Taylor -- a former early childhood education teacher herself -- teaches CDFS 405, A Practical Approach to Social Science Research and CDFS 411, Child Development Applications: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice (the course she will refine as part of the LIFT grant).   

“We’ve had a lot of success stories in our program, including students hired as Head Start, TK, and elementary school teachers, child life specialists, child development administrators, care coordinators, and many students pursuing graduate studies.”  

In the classroom, Dr. Taylor is helping to shape the next generation of the workforce supporting children and families, though she is not stopping there, having immersed herself in several other projects studying the lives of teachers. Recently, Dr. Taylor completed an 18-month secondary data analysis grant funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) exploring Head Start teacher thriving related to teacher and child outcomes.  

“We are moving away from traditional deficit-based approaches that focus merely on stress reduction,” said Dr. Taylor of teacher well-being. “The project redefines workforce well-being through the lens of teacher thriving [which includes external workplace supports and high-quality classroom practices].”  

In addition, Dr. Taylor is collaborating with the Long Beach Early Childhood Education Committee to conduct a research project examining the strengths and assets of the early childhood workforce in the city of Long Beach.  

“We have surveyed over 200 educators and are currently analyzing the data. We hope to publish several mixed method research studies on the workforce next year.”