Excellence

Within the Department of Psychology and Health Studies, we are committed to achieving and maintaining excellence in four main areas: undergraduate teaching, graduate training, research, and professional service. We envision a dynamic, modern undergraduate curriculum offering highly flexible liberal arts degrees with a psychology or health studies major. We also offer a cutting edge honors programs in psychology or health studies designed to prepare students for a diverse range of graduate studies. Each undergraduate program is designed to provide all students with sophisticated instruction in a broad spectrum of theory, method, and history.

With respect to graduate training, our goal is to attract and support high quality students in the applied social, clinical, culture and human development, and cognition and neurosocience programs. Our pedagogical aspirations at both the undergraduate and graduate levels rest on the excellence and commitment of our faculty. Ultimately, we envision the department as a nationally and internationally recognized center of excellence for theoretical and applied psychological research with strengths in diverse areas of the discipline.

Service

We are committed to encouraging and recognizing the efforts of faculty and students to conduct research, teaching, and practice that improves the quality of life within the university community as well as locally, nationally, or internationally and that is sensitive to social issues. We envision this goal to be obtained through centers of excellence in research and teaching, through the community-oriented Psychology Services Center, and interdisciplinary work.

Diversity 

We are committed to diversity both in scholarship and in the cultural and ethnic representation of its community. We are committed to ensuring that our faculty complement represents expertise in a diverse range of established and emerging areas of theoretical and applied research and practice that are representative of the discipline's breadth. We envision a department that consists of a faculty and a graduate and undergraduate student population that reflects the cultural and ethnic diversity of the greater community.

Collegiality 

We are committed to a shared vision of the future of an organization that respectfully recognizes differences but that is directed toward creating an atmosphere of community, trust, and cooperation among faculty, staff, and students. We envision a department with strong intra-departmental communication and that consistently works toward establishing harmony and balance between individual needs/goals/objectives and the greater good of the Department. It is our position that collegiality and mutual respect are the main values underlying the three previously mentioned values. That is, we recognize that the success in realizing the vision of the department depends on the actions and goodwill of individual members. Ultimately, our vision of the Department is one in which the members share a sense of community and who recognize their responsibilities to the community in addition to their rights as contributing members of the community. To achieve this vision, greater effort will need to be expended to provide members with an opportunity to have their voices heard, their concerns recognized, and their differences aired in a respectful and productive forum.