To borrow a phrase from the NCAA, Austin Peay has more than 300 student-athletes and just about all of them will be going pro in something other than sports. Over the years, several of Austin Peay's departed student-athletes have gone on to do big things in their chosen field. After her days as a member of the women's golf team, Catie Tucker–now Dr. Catie Clinard–has used her talents and passion to support her community and lead the next generation of pyschology students at Dalton State College.
Late in the conversation, Dr. Catie Clinard brought up a point that we had been dancing around for awhile before she cut to the chase.
She had been talking about the work she had done, pre-pandemic, with her dog Ty. Using her skills to train Ty, a seven-year old Goldendoodle, as a therapy dog, the duo had spent countless hours visiting libraries, schools, hospitals and hospice care to help relieve anxiety and provide comfort to those in need.
Understand: working with Ty in those capacities is not her full-time job. It's not a side hustle. It's just a thing she does because she can and because doing something good for someone else is important.
"It's a rewarding way to serve my community," she said. "I feel like we all need to do service, and I felt like I could use my strengths to fill that niche."
Doing for others has been a hallmark of Catie Clinard's life, going back to her days at Austin Peay. Back then, Catie Tucker was a member of the Austin Peay women's golf team. With her ambition on the course and determination off it, she had the ready-made persona for a successful post-graduate career, the kind of which became a hallmark of the women's golf program and continues to this day.
She's done that. And we'll get to it, because it is a part of the story. But there's more to it, because there's more to her, a desire to impact more than just her field and a need to pass what she's learned to the next generation.
"I want to be a mentor because I had good mentors," she said. "My coach [Robson] was a very positive mentor in my life, and I had some awesome mentors in the psychology department at Austin Peay as well; I would never have gotten into grad school without those mentors at Austin Peay who were very positive and very encouraging but also very firm with me on what I needed to do and improve on to reach those goals."
A mom of two and the wife of former Austin Peay baseball player Jon Clinard, Dr. Clinard now resides as assistant professor of psychology at Dalton State. Teaching the next generation is rewarding, and the seven peer-reviewed journals she's been published in are a testament to her intelligence, grit and ability to rise to the top of her field.
Those accomplishments look fantastic on a résumé, which likely explains in some part why she was accorded an Outstanding Young Alumnus honor from Austin Peay in 2019. But there are more than just the accomplishments—there are the things she has done to go above and beyond for the young people that look to her for guidance, and in those moments her impact has gone far beyond any professional accomplishment.
"Figuring out what you want to do with your life at 18 to 22 years old is incredibly stressful," she said. "A job and a career is potentially 40-to-45 years of a life, so I try to help students figure out and navigate their life goals and how to find a career that matches those goals."
It's an extension of her natural curiosity. After obtaining her Ph.D. in biological psychology from Tennessee in 2017, Dr. Clinard has become a leading voice in experimental psychology, devoting herself not only to the study of how the brain controls thoughts, emotions and behavior but also expanding her understanding—and by extension, that of her students—in her chosen field.
"I've always been a why person," she said. "I've always asked questions, I was the annoying student in class who'd raise their hand and ask the professor to elaborate. The unknown has always intrigued me.
"My role now is mostly teaching and mentoring. I try to develop some sort of relationship with the students who show interest in going to grad school or help them figure out what they want to do. I teach the careers in psychology course and talk about what you can do with this degree, whether you want to go to grad school or not… there are endless opportunities for a career with a bachelors in psychology, you just have to think outside the box."
Thinking outside the box led Dr. Clinard to the career she has in the first place. Originally angling for a life of lab work the birth of Caden, her first child, caused Dr. Clinard to re-evaluate whether or not 12 hours per day in a lab was the best use of her time.
The following SOUNDS cool. But ask yourself if it's the only way you'd like to spend the work day.
"Academia provided more flexibility while still letting me do what I love," she said. "You do the same stuff every day some times. There was a three-month stretch where I did nothing but get up, go to the lab and slice brains. It's a lot of repetitiveness, long hours, weekends and holidays that you give up to get the research done. I'd have a TV show on Netflix in the background going just to pass the time."
All sounds kind of hectic, right? Mom of two, wife, professor, well-regarded academic. Seems difficult to juggle. But being a former student-athlete, Dr. Clinard has been trying to keep multiple plates in the air for so long, it's practically second-nature at this point.
"Any college athlete has to learn time management really quickly if they want to be successful in class and in athletics," she said. "I was [at Austin Peay] in the days when we had mandatory study hall and 2-4 hours of practice per day. To squeeze all that in, you have to be able to manage your day and your time.
I picked up a combination of skill building and knowledge while I was [at Austin Peay]. Sure it took a lot of learning in the classroom to get where I am today, but it took a lot of growth as far as building time management skills, building discipline, building grit and that was equally important. I have to credit my time at Austin Peay for that."
