Meena Sundrum Wins 2025 Gretchen Goldsmith Lankford Award

Meena Sundrum, recipient of the 2025 Gretchen Goldsmith Lankford Award, will always remember the day she introduced a “feelings thermometer” to the Preschool 4’s class at the Children’s School.

“It was something that I had used in my previous work in family-based therapy,” said Sundrum, a 2025 graduate in psychology, who made the color-coded thermometer out of paper the night before.

Sundrum was working with the students as part of her self-directed internship with Sharon Carver, who encouraged her to try out new emotional regulation strategies to see what resonated — both with the students, but also with Sundrum’s teaching style.

To institute the thermometer, Sundrum explained to the four-year-olds that they could place markers on the various levels to indicate how they were feeling that day — from a blue section down at the bottom indicating sleepiness or lack of energy to emotions such as happiness or nervousness, and finally sadness and anger in orange and red near the top.

“It was one of the most incredible moments of my life, because one by one, each of the students came up, and they were saying how they felt and why they felt that way,” said Sundrum.

Throughout the course of the day, the students even took it upon themselves to update their position on the thermometer, unprompted by Sundrum, as they got into conflicts or perhaps started missing their parents. What’s more, the thermometer was so successful, the class incorporated it into their daily routine.

“It was really just meant to be one day,” said Sundrum. “But it’s still around, 10 weeks later.”

This is just one of the many examples of how Sundrum wowed her professors and advisors and secured their recommendations for the 2025 Gretchen Goldsmith Lankford Award. The award is given each year to a graduating student in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences for outstanding academic achievement and a commitment to graduate study and a career in education.

“Meena’s academic record speaks for itself,” said Lauren McCarthy, academic advisor in the Department of Psychology. “With a GPA of 3.71 and ability to engage critically with complex material, Meena has consistently been among the top performers in her courses.”

“She has taken about every child development course we offer,” said Susanne Ferber, head of the Department of Psychology. “Not only does [Sundrum] embody the criteria of the award, she will also bring credit to the program.”

In another example, while enrolled in Carver’s Fall 2024 Practicum in Child Development course, Sundrum selected a series of texts based on her interests in education, childhood development and psychology — books that would influence Carver and the rest of the Children’s School educators, too. 

“We read a book on the Whole Child Alphabet, which then prompted me to launch a book club with the Children’s School educators,” said Carver, director of the Children’s School and teaching professor in the Department of Psychology. “We also read a book on trauma and young children that impacted our whole staff reflections on a struggling child in our care that semester.”

Sundrum also piloted a new midterm classroom data project for Carver, then extended the scope of the project by presenting her findings to the whole Children’s School staff. She is also working with an editor to finalize a draft of a children’s book that teaches children how to cope with fear of failure by using visualizations and other mindfulness techniques.

“It’s about finding courage in a hard moment,” said Sundrum, who is also illustrating the book. “I find stories to be deeply impactful, and I love that storytelling, reading, and psychology alike provide a lens to the parts of people you don’t get to see on the outside.”

Sundrum said she hopes to continue learning in a teaching position post-graduation.

“I’d love to deepen my knowledge of school and education and how we communicate with these young people,” said Sundrum.