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Psychology students Andrew Cummings and Erin Tooley received a grant for research from Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology. Their project is entitled "The Effects of Plant Viewing on Well-Being and Cognitive Performance". These grants are awarded on a competitive basis to students nationwide.
Mary Turner DePalma brought Ithaca College alum and FBI profiler Gregg McRary to the college for a campus-wide address. His talk highlighted a number of cases he was involved with during his FBI career.
Leigh Ann Vaughn, together with students Sandra Schwartz and Thomas O'Rourke, received a grant from the Ithaca College chapter of Sigma Xi to attend the national convention of the American Psychological Society. O'Rourke and Schwartz each will receive $500.00 to cover travel, registration, and hotel costs of the conference, which will take place in Chicago, Illinois on May 27-30, 2004. At the convention, Vaughn, O'Rourke and Schwartz will present a research poster about a study they did in Research Team 11 (Positive Psychology) in Fall, 2003.
Nancy Rader (Principal Investigator), together with Barney Beins and Leigh Ann Vaughn (Co-Principal Investigators), received a grant in August from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant, totaling $158,000, will support an interdisciplinary mind-body laboratory in Williams Hall. Collaborating faculty include Hugh Stephenson and Andrea White from Psychology as well as faculty from Theatre Arts, Music, Exercise Science, and Physical Therapy.
Carla Golden conducted a pre-conference workshop at the APA convention for Division 35 on Teaching the Psychology of Women. Her focus was on the relative merits of using the psychological literature vs trade books to teach about the intersections of gender, race, and class in the lives of girls and women.
She also participated in two symposia at the convention, "Empirical investigations of the multiplicity of lesbian and gay identity"; her paper was titled: Twenty years of change in women's gender and sexual self-identifications. In the second symposium, "Diversity discourse: LGBT issues in the psychology curriculum", her contribution was entitled Teaching about gender diversity and diverse sexualities.
Barney Beins co-presented a talk on teaching resources at the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology in St. Petersburg, Florida. His co-author was Maureen McCarthy, a psychology professor at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta and Director of Pre-College and Undergraduate Programs at the American Psychological Association. He also served as a judge of poster presentations for three awards.
He presented the opening keynote address at the Northeastern Conference for Teachers of Psychology at Rhode Island College on October 14. This conference is part of the annual convention of the New England Psychological Association Convention.
He also presented, with Ann Lynn, at a conference called Best Practices: Best Practices in Teaching Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology. Their talk is entitled "Integrating computer applications in statistics and research methods". Barney is one of the co-organizers of the conference.
Barney was president of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) for 2004. He presented his presidential address at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Honolulu in August. It was entitled Teachers of Psychology, Keepers of Psychology. STP is a division of the American Psychological Association with an international membership of over 3,000 psychologists.
Educational Testing Services has appointed Barney Beins to the Test Development Committee for the Advanced Placement Test in Psychology. In addition, Argosy University has named Barney Beins to its Psychology Advisory Board.
Cyndy Scheibe and project Look Sharp have just published an Elections Kit. Cyndy was the major editor, and also wrote various portions of the kit; the main authors are Chris and Sox Sperry.
A Summer Media Literacy Institute took place at Ithaca College July 12-16, with 15 participants from all over New England. The week-long intensive course included morning sessions devoted to the theory, research and practice of media literacy in education, while the afternoons were devoted to technology integration (PowerPoint, digitial imagery, digital video). A graduate course component was included for the first time (through the graduate program in communications at the Park School) with students attending the weeklong intensive course here in Ithaca, and then participating in online discussions, readings and written assignments through WebCT. All participants will be incorporating media literacy into specific aspects of their work with students during the coming year, and will give presentations about their integration projects next spring at our Spring Symposia.
Project Look Sharp will be hosting our second annual conference on media literacy in education here at Ithaca College, October 14-15. The title of the conference was "Literacy in a Media Age."
Cyndy has two publications out this year - a revised and expanded booklet on the 12 Basic Principles for Integrating Media Literacy and Critical Thinking into K-12 Education (Scheibe & Rogow, 2004) and an article just published in American Behavioral Scientist entitled: "A Deeper Sense of Literacy: Curriculum Driven Approaches to Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom."
Judith Pena-Shaff directed a student trip to the Dominican Republic this past summer. Students spent twelve days there as part of an international field experience. The course, Developmental Psychology: An international field experience, was a great learning experience both for the students and the instructor. During their stay they had the opportunity to learn about issues related to culture and human development, as well as about their own development, culture, values, and behavior. During their visit to the Dominican Republic, students stayed in three different locations: Santiago de los Caballeros, the second most important city of the country; San José de Ocóa, a small town located in the South West of the island; and Santo Domingo, the capital.
During their stay students visited a psychiatric hospital, an orphanage, a batey (bateyes are small poor communities where people –mainly Haitians who work in the sugar cane fields —live), and a campo, giving them the opportunity to interact with the local people, especially the children. Students’ reactions, as reflected in their journals, reflect an increase in cultural awareness and sensitivity to cultural issues. Many students fell in love with the country and its people, especially with the children. Based on the experience of these two weeks, some students have begun to consider the possibility of going back to Santiago to do community work or to do fund raising activity to help some of the places we visited. A statement in one of the student journals reflects thevalue of this experience: “I have to say, that even if I had to go home today, this trip would have been COMPLETELY worth the cost—I have done so many rewarding and amazing things already, and I have been here only a couple of days”. This course will be offered again next May.
Ann Lynn is on the program, with Barney Beins, at a conference called Best Practices: Best Practices in Teaching Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology. Their talk is entitled "Integrating computer applications in statistics and research methods".
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