Lindsey Deichler

“I’ve been able to apply almost everything I learned in the Expressive Arts in Mental Health program in my classroom,” says Lindsey Deichler, a graduate program instructor at the Anderson Center for Autism in Poughkeepsie, New York. She had been a summer teaching assistant at the center and joined full time after she finished her bachelor’s degree at Russell Sage College in December 2023. 

“I work with adults who are in the process of transitioning out to their adult placements,” she continued. “We work on establishing academic and vocational skills within the classroom and the community.”

“They knew I was graduating,” she said of the job offer she received months in advance of completing her degree. “When I was interviewed, they said that they saw one moment I had with my students and the smiles on our faces, and they knew they wanted to hire me.” 

The smiles that caught the hiring committee’s attention occurred during one of the morning meetings Deichler led as a teaching assistant, when she would play music and invite students to dance. 

Since then, Deichler — a lifelong dancer who was a member of Russell Sage’s Dance Ensemble and who completed a dance concentration within the Expressive Arts in Mental Health major — has especially enjoyed helping her students use movement for behavior and emotional regulation. 

She also regularly incorporates visual art projects in her lesson plans. 

“Art is a really great medium for my students, especially my students who are nonverbal, allowing them to have a place to work out feelings that they can’t otherwise communicate,” she said. “And I have also been able to apply the things I learned about stages of development through art.” 

Deichler said her aunt inspired her to attend Russell Sage. She chose a bachelor’s degree in Expressive Arts in Mental Health because it is great preparation for her ultimate goal to become an occupational therapist (She’s starting an OT master’s program in fall 2024.) 

Expressive Arts in Mental Health and occupational therapy allow her to combine her interests in human development, education, and the arts as a therapeutic medium, and she looks forward to continuing to work with adults with autism as an OT. 

“I am very excited for everything I’m going to do,” she said.