2019-2020 Academic Catalog

Sep 14, 2024

2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Psychology Major

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Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology

The Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology, formed in 1987, has a major endowment provided through the generous support of the Hiatt family. The school, which encompasses the Department of Psychology and the Department of Education, provides, in addition to Frances L. Hiatt Graduate Fellowships, opportunities for organizing and attending conferences, and support for travel and research activities for the school’s faculty and students.

Psychology Overview

The department provides educational experiences that both contribute to liberal-arts education and prepare students for graduate work in psychology or related disciplines. The program emphasizes the role of psychological scholarship in understanding human behavior and experience. The program culminates in small and intensive capstone courses that offer students an opportunity to participate fully in the theoretical and research life of the department.

For more information, please visit the Psychology Department’s website.

Declaring a Psychology Major

A student nearing the end of his or her sequence of introductory courses should contact the Psychology Department Administrator to declare a major and be assigned a psychology adviser. This formality will normally occur by the spring of a student’s sophomore year.

Major Requirements

Students must earn a minimum course grade of C- in order to receive major credit in Psychology. Courses taken Pass/Fail will not be accepted for major credit. The Psychology Department will accept one School of Professional Studies Undergraduate (SPS UG) course for major credit, providing that the course is designated by SPS UG as an approved course for day students, and the course is pre-approved by the department prior to registration. Students wishing to submit a SPS UG course for Psychology approval should email a complete syllabus from the course (indicating which requirement they’d like to fulfill) to the Psychology Department Administrator, Kelly Boulay.

There are ten course requirements in the Psychology major. The seven introductory courses provide a foundation in the content and method of psychology and should normally be completed by the end of the sophomore year. These include the four Introduction and Methods courses and at least one course from each of the broad-topic Foundation courses: Basic Processes, Developmental/Cultural, and Social/Clinical.

Orientation Courses

Introduction and Methods

Math Placement Exam

In order to register for PSYC 105, students must score 50% (a 10) or better on Part 1 of the Math Placement Exam, which can be found on the university’s Moodle site.

Students may take the exam a maximum of two times. Students who do not pass the exam after two tries may contact the Psychology Department for alternatives.

Basic Processes (BP):

Courses in physiological psychology, learning, sensation and perception, human sexuality, health psychology, interpersonal psychology, and cognition. Choose from:

Developmental/Cultural (DEV/CULT):

Courses in human development and cultural psychology. Choose from:

Social/Clinical (S/C):

Courses in social, clinical, personality and abnormal psychology. Choose from:

Exploration Courses

In addition to the above seven introductory courses, majors must take two mid-level courses that provide experience with the two fundamental activities of academic psychology, the analysis and interpretation of psychological literatures and the conduct of psychological investigations. Students typically complete at least one each of the following types of mid-level courses by the end of the junior year: a First Seminar and either a Lab Course or a Research Course.

First Seminars (PSYC 236-259)

The mid-level First Seminars focus on the attentive analysis of psychological texts, the articulation of opinions concerning psychological issues, and the use of library and reference skills in psychological writing. (Permission to take a capstone seminar as a first seminar will not ordinarily be given and must, in any case, be obtained in writing in advance from the faculty member involved.)

Labs (PSYC 200-235)

The mid-level one-semester Lab Courses focus on doing psychological research including planning, data collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation. The laboratory requirement may also be fulfilled by taking a research course in one of the faculty labs.

Research courses (PSYC 200-235)

Research Courses are opportunities to participate in faculty and/or graduate student research projects, in all stages of the research process from conceptualization to presentation. The work normally terminates in an Academic Spree Day presentation and/or co-authorship of a scholarly paper or conference presentation. Students desiring to join a research course should make arrangements with a faculty sponsor well in advance. In approaching faculty members to make these arrangements, students should bear in mind that research courses are taken on as an addition to a faculty member’s normal teaching load and space is limited. Many of the faculty research labs require a two-semester commitment. In such cases, the first semester counts as the mid-level research credit. The second semester may count as either an additional unit of credit, or as a capstone research credit at the discretion of the faculty.

Capstone Courses

Capstone Seminars (PSYC 260-297)

Capstone Seminars are open to undergraduates, and in many cases, to graduate students, and are taught at or near the graduate level.

Capstone Research (PSYC 292)

These courses are by faculty permission only. Capstone research students should expect to write a substantial research report describing the theory, methods, statistical method, results and conclusions of the project they conducted. The second semester of research in a faculty lab can also be counted for capstone research credit at the discretion of the faculty.

Psychology Honors (PSYC 297)

The Psychology Honors sequence is a two-semester experience designed to guide selected honors students through the design and execution of an independent honors research project. The Psychology Honors sequence is designed to be especially, but not uniquely, attractive to students interested in pursuing graduate study in Psychology or another related discipline such as medicine, teaching, and the law. The major focus of the experience is the completion of an individual research project conducted in close collaboration with a faculty mentor. These collaborations typically occur in individual meetings, as well as group meetings as part of the faculty member’s research team. In the fall of senior year, the student will develop the research project, submit a proposal to the IRB, and begin the project. In the spring semester students will complete their individual research projects and prepare written and oral presentations. Honors students are encouraged to present their projects at Academic Spree Day.

Students interested in pursuing an Honors project must apply to the department during the spring semester of their junior year. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to have identified a possible faculty supervisor as early as the end of the sophomore year, as some faculty members may require that Honors students enroll in their research course and/or take a Directed Study with them during junior year, in order to start developing their Honors thesis prior to senior year.

Applications will be sent to all Psychology majors in the fall semester via email.

Internship (PSYC 298) and Directed Studies (PSYC 299)

Internships and Directed Studies may count as University credits, but do not count toward the Psychology major requirements.

Students who wish to do an internship in Psychology for major credit may do so in fulfillment of the mid-level Research requirement

by enrolling in PSYC 211 , which is offered in the spring semester.

Minor or Cluster Requirement

In addition to the ten major requirements, Psychology majors fulfill a minor or cluster requirement. This requirement reflects the conviction of the faculty that all academic areas are usefully related to psychology and that understanding the relation between psychology and another discipline requires knowing that other discipline in considerable depth. A related field is generally a recognized six-course concentration, minor, or second major. Alternatively, a student may adopt as a related field any pattern of six courses, excluding psychology courses, which his or her psychology adviser has approved as providing depth of knowledge in a discipline related to psychology.

The department will accept one pre-approved School of Professional Studies Undergraduate (SPS UG) course in the fulfillment of the cluster requirement, in addition to one departmentally pre-approved SPS UG course in Psychology toward the fulfillment of the major requirements.

Transfer and AP Courses for Psychology Major Credit

The Psychology Department accepts up to five transfer courses to count toward the major requirements. Transfer students wishing to transfer psychology courses from another institution should bring syllabi from these courses and meet with a transfer advisor in the psychology department prior to beginning their coursework at Clark.

Students who receive a 4 or a 5 score on the Psychology AP exam will be given credit for Psychology 101.

Students who would like to take a summer course to fulfill a major requirement should send an electronic copy of the syllabus for the course–prior to enrolling–to the Psychology Department Administrator, who will submit it to the department faculty for review.

All transfer courses must also be approved through Clark’s Academic Advising Office.

Psychology Faculty

Program Faculty

Esteban Cardemil, Ph.D. - Department Chair
Michael Addis, Ph.D.
Michael Bamberg, Ph.D.
Nancy Budwig, Ph.D.
James Córdova, Ph.D.
Alena Esposito, Ph.D.
Abbie Goldberg, Ph.D.
Wendy S. Grolnick, Ph.D.
Amy Heberle, Ph.D.
Ana K. Marcelo, Ph.D.
Nicole Overstreet, Ph.D.
Kathleen Palm Reed, Ph.D.
Andrew Stewart, Ph.D.
Johanna Ray Vollhardt, Ph.D.

Research Faculty

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Ph.D.
Rachel Joffe Falmagne, Ph.D.
Denise Hines, Ph.D.
Joseph de Rivera, Ph.D.

Clinical Faculty

Wendy Grolnick, Ph.D. - Director of Clinical Training
Kathleen Palm Reed, Ph.D. - Associate Director of Clinical Training
Michael Addis, Ph.D.
Esteban Cardemil, Ph.D.
James Cordova, Ph.D.
Abbie Goldberg, Ph.D.
Amy Heberle, Ph.D.

Developmental Faculty

Nancy Budwig, Ph.D. - Head of Developmental Program
Michael Bamberg, Ph.D.
Alena Esposito, Ph.D.
Ana K. Marcelo, Ph.D.

Social Faculty

Johanna Ray Vollhardt, Ph.D. - Head of Social Program
Nicole Overstreet, Ph.D.
Andrew Stewart, Ph.D.

Professors Emeriti

Roger Bibace, Ph.D.
Joseph de Rivera, Ph.D.
Rachel Joffe Falmagne, Ph.D.
James Laird, Ph.D.
David Stevens, Ph.D.
Nicholas Thompson, Ph.D.
Jaan Valsiner, Ph.D.

Affiliate Faculty

Cathleen Crider, Ph.D.
Ashley Hart, Ph.D
Christina Hatgis, Ph.D.
Phoebe Moore, Ph.D.
Johanna Sagarin, Ph.D.

Courses

Courses offered within the last 2 Academic Years