Cathy Grace, Ed.D.
Professor
Founding Director

Cathy Grace began her career in early childhood education in 1972 in eastern Arkansas, teaching first grade at Wedlock Elementary School in West Memphis and holding "summer school" on the front porch of her father's general store in the tiny town of Proctor.

Having had her own first child at the age of 17, Grace already knew a lot about rural life, poverty, and at-risk children. After earning a bachelor's degree at the University of Arkansas, she came home to teach, so that her parents could help care for her son, and entered graduate school at Arkansas State University. She tempted her young pupils to her front porch program with popsicles and helped them learn the alphabet and numbers while reading to them.

In the three decades since then, Grace has taught at the university level; been executive director of a regional professional development association for early childhood educators; and created and directed a comprehensive family support agency for Lee County, Mississippi. When Mississippi became the last state in the country to require school districts to offer kindergarten in 1985, Grace led the kindergarten implementation as early childhood coordinator for the state Department of Education. She has been an advisor to governors, to legislative leaders, to members of the United States Congress, to state departments of education and human services, to the Public Broadcasting System, and to school districts, and has made hundreds of presentations to audiences around the nation.

Grace joined Mississippi State University (MSU) in 1999 as an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction of the College of Education and director of its Early Childhood Institute. Since that time, she has obtained millions of dollars from private, local, state, and federal sources to conduct and evaluate a variety of technical assistance models for child care programs, preschool and elementary programs, community colleges, and four-year universities in Mississippi.

When MSU obtained an additional grant of $2.1 million from the United States Department of Education in 2004, it appointed Grace to direct the National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives within the MSU Early Childhood Institute. She leads a team of researchers at MSU and at partner universities and agencies to study gaps in early childhood services in rural communities and how technical assistance models can be replicated and adapted in diverse rural areas.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Grace spearheaded a multi-million dollar effort to rebuild and equip damaged and destroyed early childhood programs in the Mississippi Katrina region. Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi appointed Grace in June 2008 to the Mississippi Early Childhood Advisory Council.

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