With a father who served in the criminal justice system and a mother who made her career in healthcare, Keuka College senior Allie Hutchins was practically born to public service.
“I knew I wanted to do a cross between them,” said the Forensic Psychology major. “That’s how I found psychology. And then I found out about forensics and learned that that was a little niche, and I was like, that’s what I want to do!”
And that’s what she’s doing – at Keuka College.
Combining the College’s robust academic programs and its one-of-a-kind Field Period® internship opportunities, Allie is building the foundation for a career in victim advocacy. As the survivor of abuse herself, she knows how important that role can be.
“When you’ve experienced such a traumatic event, your entire mindset changes; you don’t know how to function,” she said. “Because I’ve been there, I have the ability to help and say, ‘I genuinely do understand where you’re coming from and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.’”
Allie used a junior year Field Period summer placement with the Victim Services Unit of the New Jersey State Police to familiarize herself with some of the needs of those who have been victimized. Among her duties was contacting jails throughout the state to update information for the Victim Information Notification Everyday (VINE) system, which contacts victims when an assailant is moved or released.
A previous Field Period with the New Jersey State Police saw her work with the drug monitoring and analysis unit.
“My Field Periods have given me a lot of experience,” Allie said. “I think they’ve prepared me very well and helped me make a lot of connections.”
Field Period was just one attribute that attracted the Flemington, New Jersey, resident, who graduated in a high school class of 730, to small-on-purpose Keuka College. She initially weighed studying American Sign Language as well as forensic psychology but thought she’d have to choose between the two before selecting a college.
“There weren’t a lot of schools that had forensic psych or ASL,” Allie recalls. “And then I found Keuka College, and I found they had forensic psych and ASL, and I was like, ‘Oh, sweet!’”
Once on campus, Allie said, she found a close-knit community and professors with whom she could easily form helpful relationships, including assistant professors of psychology Dr. Carolyn Balzer and Dr. Susan Strickland, who, respectively, teach two of her favorite courses, Abnormal Psychology and Psychopathology, and Forensic Psychology.
“Abnormal gives me more of a background of noticing different behaviors that might lead to different mental disorders someone might have,” she said. “Forensics gives you a background of the combination between the criminal justice system and psychology.”
That broad base of knowledge will enable Allie to consider several different paths as she prepares to launch her career. She’s weighing whether to direct her efforts toward aftermath support, offered in the immediate days following a crisis, or longer-term assistance, which could involve roles such as advocating for a victim if they need to navigate the legal system.
Eventually, she’d also like to move beyond one-on-one care to generate systemic improvements.
“One of the things that I want to do once I have my degree and I’m able to get in the field,” Allie said, “is to establish an educational program for local and state law enforcement, and even medical personnel such as paramedics and EMTs, because when they are responding to a crisis situation, whether its mental health or a victim, they need to know how to handle the situation.”
For now, she’s eager to put the education and experience she’s accumulated at Keuka College to help improve lives.
“I want to get out in the field,” Allie said. “This is what I want to do. This is how I can help.”
