Rachel Razza, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Child & Family Studies in the Falk College, was named a Syracuse University 2014 Teaching Recognition Award as part of the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorship Program. This honor recognizes excellence in teaching innovation, effectiveness in communicating with students and the lasting value of courses. She will be honored at a ceremony on April 21.
A member of the Falk College since 2007, the primary focus of Dr. Razza’s scholarly work is children’s self-regulation, a multifaceted construct that encompasses a variety of skills underlying children’s ability to monitor cognitive strategies and adapt behavior to fit situational demands. Her work explores associations among different facets of self-regulation, contextual predictors of self-regulation, and implications of various self-regulatory skills for children’s school readiness and later school success. She is particularly interested in specifying these pathways among at-risk children, as these children are particularly at-risk for self-regulatory deficits.
Her recent work examines mindful yoga as a potential intervention strategy to enhance self-regulation among young children. This May, she will debut a new course she created entitled, Mindfulness in Children and Youth designed for undergrads and graduate students As well as practitioners and teachers. The course will include online and classroom components and will provide students a foundation in mindfulness practice among children and youth. The content focuses on the role of mindfulness in child and youth development and its specific benefits. She earned a Ph.D. and master of science in human development and family studies from The Pennsylvania State University and a bachelor of arts in psychology from the State University of New York at Geneseo.