Meet our Partners & Founders
Discover Together is a partnership between Scholastic, Sewanee: The University of the South, the Yale Child Study Center, and the community of Grundy County, designed to build family resiliency through programs focused around place, community, and literacy.
Emily Partin
Program Director - Grundy County
Emily was born and raised in Grundy County, TN. She has a master's degree in Clinical Psychology and is a licensed professional counselor. Emily worked in community mental health for 15 years prior to her current role as the Director of the Family Resource Center for Grundy County Schools. She is also a founding member of the Discover Together Collaborative and is now serving as the program's director. Emily serves on multiple boards in the area and has a great passion for community building. She is the liaison between Discover Together, Tracy City Elementary, and many other community programs.
Sherry Guyear
Lead Teacher - Grundy County
Mrs. Sherry, born and raised in Grundy, spent 30+ years teaching K-3 grade in the area and has been with the camp and co-op since its inception in 2011. Sherry was recognized on Scholastic’s blog “On Our Minds” as one of five inspiring teachers from across the country.
Ivey Dahlstrom
Teacher & Fellow - Grundy County
Ivey is a recent graduate of Sewanee: the University of the South and the current Robinson Fellow for Discover Together. Her interests interests include visual literacy, story telling, and enabling fair access to education.
Bonnie McCardell
Founding Member - Sewanee
Bonnie McCardell has been involved in connections between the University and the local community since moving to Sewanee in 2010 when her husband, John McCardell was named Vice Chancellor of the University of the South. She has a MEd in preschool special education from the University of South Carolina and directed NAEYC accredited early childhood and after school programs while living in Middlebury, Vermont. She served as director of Vermont’s Building Bright Futures state early childhood initiative from 2005-2007 and was involved in a variety of advocacy efforts for children and families. She currently serves on the board of the South Cumberland Community Fund.
Linda Mayes
Community Partner - Yale
Dr. Linda Mayes is the Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology in the Yale Child Study Center. After graduating from the University of the South in 1973, she received her medical degree at Vanderbilt University in 1977. Following an internship and residency in pediatrics, she spent two years as a fellow with Dr. Mildred Stahlman at Vanderbilt in the division of neonatology and worked in the area of developmental outcome of high-risk preterm infants. Dr. Mayes’s interest in the long-term impact of perinatal biological and psychosocial stressors developed during that fellowship and she came to Yale in 1982 to do a Robert Wood Johnson General Academic Pediatrics fellowship. In her Yale fellowship, she began a close collaboration with the department of psychology and Dr. William Kessen and with investigators in the Child Study Center including Dr. Donald Cohen. She joined the Center’s faculty in 1985 and established a laboratory for studying infant learning and attention. Subsequently, she also developed a neurophysiology laboratory for studies of the startle response and related indices of emotional regulation in children and adolescents and currently oversees the Developmental Electrophysiology Laboratory that includes dense array electroencephalography as a method for studying brain activity in real time.
Karen Yu
Community partner - Sewanee
A member of the Sewanee faculty since 1996, Karen Yu earned her B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Vanderbilt University, supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Her research interests are wide-ranging within the area of cognition, including decision-making, metacognition, unconscious components of and influences on cognition, and the influence of prior knowledge and expectations on various perceptual and cognitive processes. In recent years, she has helped to co-direct collaborations between Sewanee and Yale and has helped to develop a collaborative Sewanee-Yale course on Child, Family, and Community Development in Rural Appalachia.
Anna Bardus
Community partner - Scholastic
Anna currently works as a Senior Editor in Scholastic’s Education Group. There she develops a wide array of literacy products for children of all ages, their caregivers, and educators. As part of her editorial work, she has also written several books for children ages 0-5 that promote social-emotional skills, community awareness, and active, healthy development. Titles include Dinos On The Move, When We Grow Up, and I Am SuperKid! Other recent publications include Parent & Child magazine’s “100 Greatest Book For Kids” and “The 25 Coolest Schools.” Anna holds degrees in English and music, as well as a master’s degree from NYU, where she specialized in contemporary trends in children’s and young adult literature.
Karren Baiker
Community Partner - Scholastic
Karen Baicker is the Director of Community Affairs at Scholastic. She is the author of children’s picture books including Tumble Me Tumbily, Pea Pod Babies, and I Can Do It Too! She has also written over a dozen books for teachers on a range of topics including Origami Math and Teaching with Primary Sources. Before her role at Scholastic, Karen was the Editor-in-Chief for Blues Clues Magazine as well as the Party Lady and Craft Lady for Nick Jr..