Meet the new Auburn University Early Learning Center Director Dr. Meghan Orman

Dr. Meghan Orman, who comes to the College of Human Sciences and the Auburn University Early Learning Center (AUELC) to serve as the new director, brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to help lead a program that is celebrating 100 years of shaping young lives and positively impacting families.

Holding a bachelor's degree in philosophy, politics and law from Binghamton University, a master’s degree in practical philosophy and applied ethics from the University of North Florida and her Ph.D. in applied developmental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, Orman returns to a university setting where she can blend different parts of her educational background and career experiences to serve the children and families of the AUELC.

Arriving on the Plains with an extensive background in teaching, early childhood education and research, Orman begins her time as director of the AUELC with a focus on three areas at the heart of the center’s mission: practice, research and teaching.

In the Q&A below, learn more about Orman’s background, her excitement to become an integral part of the AUELC, her hopes and dreams for the future and more.

What does it mean to you to now be an integral part of an early learning center that has been around for a century?

“Stewardship is the first word that comes to mind. The AUELC was here long before me, and I hope it will be here long after me. For this period of time, I get the privilege of helping steward that legacy by honoring what has already been built while also helping the Center grow in exciting new directions.

There is an incredibly strong foundation here. My predecessor, Sharon Wilbanks, led the AUELC for nearly 20 years, and our educators have invested so much of themselves in making this a high-quality early childhood program. They are exceptional at what they do. You can also hear the impact of that work when you talk with families. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve already heard from so many parents about how much this place means to them. So, I don't see my role as coming in and reinventing the AUELC. I see it as asking: How do we build from this incredible foundation? How do we highlight what is happening here, learn from it and extend its impact?

The ELC’s mission already beautifully brings together high-quality care and education for young children, the preparation of university students, research and collaboration with the broader early childhood community. My hope is to strengthen the connections among all of those pieces. I want to deepen our relationships across the Department of Human Development and Family Science, the College of Human Sciences, Auburn University and the broader community. And over time, I would love for us to be in greater conversation with early childhood practitioners, researchers and laboratory schools beyond Auburn.”

Dr. Meghan Orman became director of the AUELC in the fall of 2026.

In your mind, what makes the AUELC so special considering it not only serves preschool children, but it also gives aspiring teachers and educators a strong foundation and is an important resource to the community as a whole.

“This is everything to me. I studied John Dewey and Maria Montessori during my master’s work, so experiential learning has been central to how I think about education for a long time. We learn by doing, reflecting, trying, questioning and doing again. That is true for young children, but it is also true for university students and for professionals. That is one of the reasons I chose Auburn. I was incredibly drawn to the laboratory-school model. I think of the AUELC as a living laboratory. We provide high-quality care and education to young children and families, while also creating a place where university students, educators and researchers can study and strengthen the conditions that make high-quality early learning possible.

Ideally, all of those things are in constant conversation with one another. University students learn theory in their courses and then come here and see what that theory looks like when you are sitting on the floor with a three-year-old. Our educators bring years of practice-based wisdom that can inform what students and researchers are asking. Researchers can learn from the questions that emerge in real classrooms. And then research can come back into the classroom and inform practice. Practice should inform research, and research should inform practice. A laboratory school — especially one located right in the heart of a university campus, like the AUELC — is an incredible environment for that kind of reciprocal learning to happen. That intersection between research and real-world practice is where I love to be, and the AUELC gives us the opportunity to build it every day.”

For those who may be unfamiliar, can you explain the collaborative effort that exists between The Early Learning Center, the College of Human Sciences and the Department of Human Development and Family Science and what makes this collaboration successful?

“I am still learning all the dimensions of this relationship, but even in my short time here, I can see how integral the partnership between the AUELC, HDFS and the College of Human Sciences is to the success of the center and to the education of Auburn students. Our head teachers all hold master’s degrees, and our current teacher assistants are graduate students in HDFS. That means they have this extraordinary opportunity to put theory into practice every day. Something they encounter in a course can suddenly become very real when they see it unfold in a classroom, and what they observe and experience in the classroom can then deepen the conversations they have in their courses.