Alice Wilder at BIF-5

Mary Ann Foley, Ph.D., and Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and Tisch Learning Center at Skidmore College may have had a hand in forever changing children's television in the U.S. during the fall semester of 1984.

That was when Alice Wilder, then a freshman at Skidmore College, took a course taught by Professor Foley entitled, Autobiographical Memories. The course focused mainly on memory and cognition.

Up until that point in her academic career, Wilder was a self-described "lifelong C student," and "never found school all that interesting." But in the fall of 1984, Professor Foley called Wilder into her office and forever changed her life path.

She proceeded to tell Wilder that she really liked her questions in class and was wondering whether she would be interested in working in her memory and cognition lab at Skidmore. "No one had ever said they liked anything about the way I thought about things. That was so new and cool to me," explains Wilder.

Wilder's experience in the lab opened up a whole new area of interest to her—namely, figuring out the way people think and what they think—especially children.

From her earliest memories into adulthood, Wilder always enjoyed being around children. Like the movie Big, she recalls, "I wanted to be the adult that thought like a kid and said unequivocally, what's so fun about that?"

Wilder went on to produce and run the research and development efforts for Nick Jr.'s groundbreaking preschool television series Blue's Clues, and serve as the developer of Blue's Room. She's been nominated for Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Preschool Children's Series as well as Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series. Her innovative approach to research with children was cited in Malcom Gladwell's bestselling book, The Tipping Point.

Today, Wilder is the co-creator of Think It Ink It Publishing, her latest venture set to launch in the fall 2006. She designed the business model for this project around promoting creative writing to children of all ages.

According to Wilder, "As the importance of writing is being equated with the importance of reading and also now includes a segment of standardized testing, the goal of this project is to provide an entertaining and motivating platform for children to practice writing and express themselves."

"I have been given a great gift to create, develop, and research products for children," she said. "The key for me is that the products I develop have to be educational AND entertaining AND interesting AND relevant in children's lives— that's how you teach kids to inquire." Wilder credits her success to Professor Foley's ability to recognize students for asking thoughtful questions.

Wilder says that her years spent in academia and children's television have taught her several things that would serve students and adults alike—especially the "C students who don't find school all that interesting"—

• There's never just one way to get where you want to go.
• Taking strange routes to get where you want to go in life can actually be a good thing!
• A combination of skills based on an individual's interests and passions allows them to become a unique contributor at work, at home and in their community.
• Find the connections from all of your experiences, then make the time to reflect and pull out what you like and don't like from those experiences.
• Create your own mission statement based on your interests and passions.
• You will be spending a lot of hours at work, so you might as well love what you do.
• Don't compare yourself to anyone else.

Wilder, now a recognized expert in educational and child psychology, recalls her humble beginnings as a student and can point to the day when asking questions opened up a whole new world of opportunities to her. She sums up her experiences through the classic Dr. Seuss line from the book, Oh, the Places You'll Go

You have brains in your head!
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And you are the one who will decide where you go.