What Makes Psychology at UMM so Great?
Unique Features:
Award-winning faculty
UMM specializes in undergraduate education, and Psychology faculty have been recognized consistently as excellent educators. Five members of the Psychology faculty have been awarded the 'Outstanding Teacher of Undergraduate Psychology Award' from the Minnesota Psychological Association (MPA). Four have been awarded the 'Morse-Alumni Award for Contributions to Undergraduate Education' (an all-University of Minnesota award). One has won a national teaching award from the APA (American Psychological Association) and one was named Minnesota Professor of the Year.
Research-oriented instruction
In order to receive a Psychology degree, students must design, implement, analyze and write about a project of their own devising (in conjunction with a faculty advisor). For those students who enjoy the research experience, participating in more than one research project is an option and is encouraged. Many classes incorporate a research component, in which students must collect and analyze data and write about their findings. Finally, all faculty are actively engaged in publishable research. This research orientation has several consequences:
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A number of our students leave here as published authors. To date, more than 100 individual students are published authors.
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In addition, a number of students each year attend national research conferences to present their data. Even more present their data at regional or local conferences.
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Students engaged in research are treated much as graduate students would be and gain an understanding of research that is not possible for most undergraduates.
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All students leave here able to evaluate data and research findings with a critical eye. Even if they never intend to do research again, this ability to critically evaluate the research of others allows them to determine the validity of other's therapeutic findings.
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Students with a research background are more likely to be accepted into graduate schools, even those programs that do not emphasize research.
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Students and faculty interact more as peers than is usual in undergraduate education.
Faculty committed to undergraduate education
Our faculty have been trained at some of the finest research institutions in this country, including the University of Chicago, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Michigan, and the University of Minnesota, just to name several. However, instead of choosing to teach and do research at large research institutions, our faculty have deliberately chosen to specialize in undergraduate education, which they consider to be the highest calling they can attain. We all understand how rewarding and fulfilling teaching undergraduates can be.
Why Should a Student go to UMM instead of somewhere else for a Psychology degree?
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Psychology faculty have a commitment to interaction with our students that reaches beyond the classroom. Each of us spends much of our time outside of class with our students, going over course materials, doing research and advising and often just simply talking. Thus, our students benefit from a great deal of hands-on instruction, both inside and outside of the classroom.
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We have 7 full-time faculty to teach our regular core courses and 2 - 3 part-time or adjunct faculty (all with Ph.D.s) that we can call upon to teach more specialized or applied courses. For a small, undergraduate college, this is a large number of faculty. What this means in practical terms is that:
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We can cover the breadth of psychology in depth (we have 2 developmentalists, a specialist in personality/psychopathology, a neuroscientist, a cognitive scientist, a health psychologist and a specialist in industrial-organizational psychology.
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We can keep our class sizes small, meaning that questions, discussions and demonstrations are an integral part of many lectures and that we get to know our students very well. A visiting student recently asked me, "Do you know the names of all the students in your classes?" My answer was a resounding "YES!".
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We can offer a wide variety of research opportunities in many different sub-specialties of psychology
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Some of our adjunct faculty are clinical researchers and thus can offer applied classes on counseling-related issues
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Psychology offers a wide range of hands-on, applied experiences or courses. For example, students may participate in internships or field experiences outside of the University to gain experience in actual clinical/human services settings. They can also take such courses as Helping Relationships (a counseling course), Ethics (a course on ethical treatment of patients) or Behavior Modification (a course on how to use behavior modification on patients).
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Laboratory facilities that include a computer lab, an animal lab, a developmental lab and a physiology lab.
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The Psychology program at UMM is very flexible in that only four courses are required to be taken by every student: the two introductory courses (Psy 1051 and Psy 2001), one required laboratory course (one of Psy 3101, 3111, 3112, 3201, 3211) and the required research project. Thus, every student can essentially design their own psychology major in terms of its emphasis. This also means that it is very easy to finish one or even two other majors (or minors) in addition to the Psychology major. One companion major that incorporates sociology and psychology into one degree is the Liberal Arts for the Human Services degree, which many of our Psych majors obtain as a second major. Other popular second majors are Biology, Political Science, a foreign language or Women's Studies.
What do Psych students do when they graduate?
Most, almost all, either immediately or eventually go on to graduate school. Many of our students receive master's degrees in counseling and become mental health specialists in some area of counseling. In addition, they also become school counselors, guidance counselors and college residential life counselors.
In addition to counseling, our students also go into the following areas: Social Work, Law, Medicine, Public Health, Pharmacology, Education, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Naturopathic Medicine.
Some also pursue Ph.D.s in some field of psychological research.
For those students who do not immediately pursue graduate education, the most common job is one in some area of human services, in which they work with patient populations such as the developmentally disabled, chemical dependency, children with behavioral/learning disabilities, etc.
What do I like most about teaching at UMM?
The students. They are bright, motivated, engaging, informative and know how to challenge the instructor to get the best out of her or him. They usually know what they want to get out of a class, and working with them to achieve that goal is the most fun I've ever had.