Academic Day - November 9 Jonathan F. Bassett, Ph.D. Lander University The 2010 annual SCPA Academic Day event is fast approaching. The event will be held at Lander University in Greenwood SC on Tuesday, November 9. For the last 16 years, SPCA has sponsored this fall event dedicated to celebrating academic psychology. The highlight of the event is the quiz bowl, in which teams of students representing their respective schools put their knowledge of psychology to the test in a competition for statewide bragging rights and a cash prize. Last year’s event drew 165 students and faculty from colleges and universities across the state and featured quiz bowl teams from Anderson University, Clemson University, Coker College, College of Charleston, Francis Marion University, Furman University, Lander University, Newberry College, North Greenville University, The Citadel, Trident Technical College, and USC Beaufort. The College of Charleston won the competition in a very exciting and dramatic sudden death showdown with Furman University who finished in second place. Our state has an impressive number of very strong undergraduate psychology programs and the quality of the education provided by these institutions is evident in the quiz bowl competition. This year’s competition will offer students an exciting opportunity to display their knowledge of psychology and will provide faculty with corroboration of the pride they surely feel in the quality or their psychology departments. In addition to the quiz bowl, Academic Day also features breakout sessions for faculty and students and a keynote address from a prominent research psychologists. This year the breakout session for students will focus on the importance of undergraduate research. Dr. Richard Keen and Dr. Cinnamon Stetler will lead a discussion of why undergraduate psychology students should be involved in conducting research, how they go about getting involved in research, potential outlets for getting grant funding, and venues for disseminating the results of undergraduate research such as at professional conferences and in peer reviewed publications. Dr. Keen is an experimental psychologist at Converse College with research interests in the area of animal learning and behavior. Dr. Stetler is a health psychologist at Furman University with research interest in the area of how psychosocial factors contribute to physical health. Both Dr. Keen and Dr. Stetler have been very successful in involving numerous undergraduate students in their research programs.
Their collective expertise will offer student attendees at Academic Day valuable insight into how to obtain the research skills so highly valued by graduate schools and employers. In the breakout session for faculty, Dr. Kevin Wickes of Lander University will lead a discussion of how to balance traditional and online course offerings in a psychology curriculum. Many academic institutions are likely engaged in a discussion of how to balance administrator’s fondness for the cost effective nature of online courses with faculty’s reservations about quality control. Dr. Wickes has a rich variety of teaching experiences that make him well suited to addressing this issue. Prior to joining the Lander psychology faculty this year, he taught both traditional and online courses for 15 plus years at diverse institutions, on both graduate and undergraduate levels. The session will focus on how technology affects accountability and mastery of content as well as concerns about the potential loss of the human element in teaching. Faculty attendees should leave this session informed with new insights that they can use in curriculum discussions at their own institutions. Dr. Robin Kowlaski will deliver this year’s keynote address. Dr. Kowlaski has a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is currently full professor in the psychology department at Clemson University, where she has received several awards for teaching excellence, advising excellence, and faculty excellence. Dr. Kowalski is a nationally recognized authority on cyber bullying. She has published numerous journal articles on the topic and is coauthor of the book Cyber bullying: Bullying in the digital age (2008, Blackwell Publishers). This is a great opportunity for students and faculty to hear from such a prominent authority on what is currently a very salient and socially relevant topic. SCPA is to be commended for its strong commitment to promoting academic psychology. Academic Day is a laudable endeavor with a rich history. Building on this tradition, this year’s Academic Day promises to be an exciting event with much to offer students and faculty. I encourage everyone reading this newsletter to become as excited as I am about Academic Day, and become energized to promote the continued success of this event. Once again, please mark your calendar for Tuesday, November 9.
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