Summer Research Opportunity

The National Science Foundation is funding a summer research program for 2011 at Oklahoma State University. The focus of the program is on the biological basis of behavior (both human and animal). Participating students will live in dorms and get a stipend of $500 per week for eight weeks. This is an amazing opportunity to get high-quality hands-on research experience, especially for students who are interested in pursuing graduate study in this field.

The program runs from June 4-July 31, 2011. The application deadline is March 15, 2011. Students graduating in Spring or Summer 2011 are not eligible. For more information, including application materials, check out the program's web page:

http://psychology.okstate.edu/faculty/kennison/osunsfreu.htm

Outstanding Student Awards for Fall, 2010

Elizabeth 'Ible' Wood received the Outstanding Student Award in Sociology.


Michele Chaney received the Outstanding Student Award in Psychology.

We congratulate all of our recent graduates!

Mental Health Project Opportunity

Active Minds, the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to college student mental health, is offering an exciting opportunity for students to complete a research or creative project related to mental health and receive a stipend of $750 (with an additional $250 available for project expenses). Information on the Fellowship is available at http://www.activeminds.org/scholars. All undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S. are eligible to apply. Applications will be reviewed on rolling basis December 1, 2010 - January 4, 2011 and preference will be given to early submissions.

The fellowship connects students with a prestigious network of young scholars and national experts in the field of behavioral health and provides an exciting and flexible opportunity to pursue interests related to mental health. For questions, email Sara Abelson (Sara@ActiveMinds.org), Program Director of Active Minds.

Graduation Information

Here is some information relevant for students who have applied for graduation in December, 2010. If your graduation date has changed, please notify the Registrar's Office immediately (229-928-1331 or loliver@canes.gsw.edu).

General Information

The Fall Graduation for Georgia Southwestern State University will be held Saturday, December 11, 2010, at 11:00 a.m. in Convocation Hall of the Student Success Center. There will be no rehearsal. In order to ensure that you are in the correct place and that you have all necessary instructions, please report to the Intramural Gym located in the Student Success Center no later than 10:15 a.m. on December 11. Be sure to have your cap and gown with you when you arrive. Do not bring anything else with you ­ purse, coat, camera, etc. The Intramural Gym will not be secure after you leave for the ceremony.

A Graduation Breakfast has been planned for all graduates, prior to the ceremony at 8:15 a.m. in the Dining Hall. Honor graduates and other recognitions will be presented at this time. This event is a very special time to visit with faculty and fellow students for the last time before you move on in your career or to graduate school. Space will allow for graduates only at this occasion.

All candidates for graduation are expected to participate in the graduation exercises­. If you are unable to participate and have not officially notified the Registrar of this, please contact that office immediately at 229.928.1331 or email Ms. Lois Oliver. Physically challenged candidates should immediately notify Ms. Oliver of desired special accommodations.

Mailing Address

It is imperative for the Registrar’s Office to have your correct address. If your address differs from the one listed in RAIN or will change prior to graduation, please notify Ms. Lois Oliver, Assistant Registrar, immediately and complete a Change of Address form.

Ordering Your Cap and Gown

All students who plan to march must wear the appropriate GSW cap and gown for the ceremony. Go to this page to order yours. The deadline for ordering is November 15.

Tickets for Guests Attending the Graduation Ceremony

Guest tickets will be mailed to only those students who have indicated they will be marching at the graduation ceremony on December 11. If you have changed your mind about attending or not attending the ceremony, email Ms. Lois Oliver or call her at 229-928-1331 by Friday, November 12, 2010. Tickets will be mailed out by November 19, 2010. The number of tickets issued per students depends on the number of graduation students marching. That number will be determined by November 15, 2010 and emailed to you.

Psychology/Sociology Club Meeting

The Psychology/Sociology Club will meet on Tuesday, October 26, at 8:00 p.m. in Room 1 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. Dr. Paul Shapiro will be discussing some of his research, which will probably involve his recent study of freshman attitudes toward college. We'll have snacks.

Also, the Club will be sponsoring a Bake Sale from 10:30-1:30 on Wednesday, October 27 in the hallway in front of the Post Office in the Student Center. Club members or friends who want to either make something for the sale or sit at the table during the sale should contact either Dr. Cotter, faculty advisor, or Trudy Hall, Secretary.

Library Display for Mental Illness Awareness Week

The Psychology/Sociology Club organized a display in the library for Mental Illness Awareness week (Oct. 3-9). The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that one out of every four adults experiences a mental health problem in any given year, and that approximately 6% of the United States population lives with serious and/or chronic disorders. Unfortunately, less than one-third of adults receive proper diagnosis and treatment, resulting in reduced life expectancy and other problems such as homelessness, incarceration, and higher health care costs. This display represents an opportunity to learn more about mental illness and reduce the stigma associated with it.

Sleep Clinic Tour

The Psychology/Sociology Club visited the Sleep Center of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. The students watched patients being monitored for evidence of sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea. The technicians explained how the monitoring equipment works. The students also saw continuous positive airway pressure devices that are used to treat people with sleep apnea.

Convocation Wednesday, September 29

The following message was sent out earlier today by President Blanchard:

As you certainly know by now, Mr. David Ralston, the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives will be on campus this Wednesday, September 29. He will be speaking in Jackson Hall at 11:00 that morning. At the risk of pushing this a bit harder than necessary, I want to encourage you and your students to attend. Speaker Ralston was instrumental in our receiving the funding for Phase I of our Health and Human Sciences Complex this year and will be key to our receiving the money for Phase II next year. I want the Speaker to know that we appreciate his support. Having a large crowd for his presentation is important to sending that message. Thank you for your help on this.

Psychology/Sociology students: "Phase II" of the Health and Human Sciences complex mentioned in the message will be the new home of our department. Please try to come to the Convocation on Wednesday, if for no other reason than to show the Speaker the strength of your commitment to your education.

School Psychology Information Session

Georgia State University in Atlanta is hosting an information session about its School Psychology graduate program and the field of School Psychology in general. This session will be held Tuesday, October 5, at 7:00 p.m. The location will be in the College of Education Forum (10th floor), 30 Pryor Street, Atlanta, GA 30303.

For directions or more information, please contact Chela Hamilton, Graduate Program Assistant, at Cheham23@yahoo.com or (410)419-8943.

Psychology/Sociology Club Meeting

The Psychology/Sociology Club will meet on Tuesday, September 21, at 8:00 p.m. in Room 3 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. We will plan activities for the rest of the semester, including a fundraiser, a service project, and a possible field trip to the Sleep Disorders Clinic at Phoebe Putney Hospital in Albany. All are welcome to join us at the meeting.

Regents Testing Dates

The deadline for signing up for the fall semester administration of the Regents Tests is Friday, October 22, 2010. Students who do not pass the Tests their first semester at GSW (and have not previously passed them at another school) will have to take the remediation class until they satisfy this requirement. Therefore, it is very important that you take the Tests this semester.

The dates for the Regents Tests themselves are as follows:

Essay Only
Students lacking essay part only.
(Wed) October 27, 2010 - 2:00pm (check-in 1:45pm)

Reading Only
Students lacking reading part only.
(Thu) October 28, 2010 - 9:00am (check-in 8:45am)

Both Parts
Students lacking essay and reading part.
(Wed) October 27, 2010 - 9:00am (check-in 8:45am)

Both Parts
Students lacking essay and reading part.
(Thu) October 28, 2010 - 2:00pm (check-in 1:45pm)

To register, go here. You only need to sign up for one testing session; if you need both tests, sign up for one of the sessions that offers both.

Writing Center Open

The Writing Center is now open. It is located in Room 107 of the English Building. The hours are as follows:

Monday 12pm-2pm, 4pm-8pm
Tuesday 10am-12pm, 1pm-8pm
Wednesday 10am-3pm, 4pm-8pm
Thursday 10am-12pm, 1pm-7pm

The Writing Center staff provide feedback and assistance on the writing process, including topic development, transition between ideas/paragraphs, and plagiarism issues. They will not proofread your paper or write it for you. For more information on the writing center, visit its link on the GSW web site.

Psychology/Sociology Club meeting

The Psychology/Sociology Club will have its first meeting of the school year on Tuesday, August 24 at 8:00 p.m. in Room 1 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. Our speaker will be Dr. Charles Huffman, who will be telling "war stories". Refreshments will be served. All are welcome!

Psy/Soc Welcomes Courtney McDonald

The Psychology and Sociology Department welcomes Courtney McDonald. She is an Assistant Professor of Sociology who recently received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. We are very glad to have her with us.

Laura Southwell - Good luck!

Laura Southwell is moving to Alaska. She will be doing social services in a small town west of Anchorage. Good luck Laura!

Emily Cox wins the Outstanding Student Award in Psychology

Emily Cox was awarded the Outstanding Student Award in Psychology for Spring, 2010.

Georgia Psychological Society Meeting

Several members of the Psychology/Sociology Club attended a meeting of the Georgia Psychological Society in March. Ellen Cotter and Andrea Miller accompanied the students on this trip. The students saw undergraduate poster presentations (pictured) and participated in a mock GRE test.

From left: Immanuel Burney, Eddie Robinson, Brandi Charbonneau, and Michelle Chaney.

LaVerne Worthy wins the Featured Public Servant Award

LaVerne Worthy has been awarded the Featured Public Servant award for her work on the Relative Caregiver Project and Court Appointed Special Advocates programs. Dr. Worthy's accomplishments are described in detail in the press release for this award. Congratulations LaVerne!

The Stroop Task in Experimental Psychology

The Experimental Psychology students recently did the Stroop task for a research project.

Registration and internship information

The schedules of summer and fall classes are up on the GSW website, at this link. Note that when registration starts on March 29, you can register for both summer and fall classes. Although there are several summer terms, you can take classes in any of them as long as the times don't overlap.

If you're interested in doing an internship, please read the information on the Psychology/Sociology Department website about the procedures for finding and registering for an internship. Please be aware that you can register for 3, 6, or 9 credits of internship, but that you will need to put in 7 hours per week for every 3 internship credit hours if your internship is in the fall, and 14 hours per week for every 3 credits in the summer. Also, if you are planning on doing an internship in the summer, you must register for it by the end of the pre-registration period (April 16).

Psychology/Sociology Club meeting

The Psychology/Sociology Club will meet on Tuesday, March 16, at 6:38 p.m. in Room 3 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. We will continue making plans for spring semester activities, including our trip to the Georgia Psychological Society meeting on March 27. We will also have some speakers, two of the staff from the CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) program, who will talk about domestic violence issues. All are welcome.

Psychology/Sociology Club

Due to Spring Break, the next meeting of the Psychology/Sociology Club will have its next meeting on Tuesday, March 2, at 6:27 p.m. in Room 3 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. We will be discussing our plans to attend the meeting of the Georgia Psychological Society to be held on Saturday, March 27 at Macon State College. The registration deadline is March 15, so if you are planning to go to the GPS meeting you should either attend the March 2 club meeting or see Dr. Cotter for more information.

Order your cap and gown!

If you are planning to graduate in the Spring 2010 semester, you need to think about ordering your cap and gown. The deadline is March 22. The cost of the cap and gown is included in your graduation application fee, but you still need to order it so you can specify what size you need.

Orders for the cap and gown need to be placed online. To see the instructions for placing an order, go to the following web page (and ignore the thing at the top about December graduation):

http://gsw.edu/main/graduation.html

If you want to order announcements or anything else, you can do it through that too. The link on that page called "Flyer from Herff Jones" contains the website address for placing orders as well as pricing information.

Times Talk

On Wednesday, February 24, from 5:00-6:00, GSW will host its first of the series of Times Talks for this semester. This is an opportunity to discuss articles from the New York Times in an informal, non-graded format. The discussion will be held in Room 2413 of the Student Success Center. Free food and drinks from Zaxby's will be provided. The New York Times articles that will be the points of discussion are listed below.

Topic: “Are We Truly Living in a Post-Racial America?”

Facilitated by
Marlene Allen and David Hunter

Articles to be Discussed:

Vedantam, Shankar. “Shades of Prejudice.” New York Times. 18 January 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/opinion/19vedantam.html

Blow, Charles M. “Black in the Age of Obama.” New York Times. 4 December 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/opinion/05blow.html

Luo, Michael. “’Whitening’ the Resume.” New York Times. 5 December 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/weekinreview/06Luo.html?ref=us

Luo, Michael. “In Job Hunt, College Degree Can’t Close the Racial Gap.” New York Times 30 November 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html

Psychology/Sociology Club

The Psychology/Sociology Club will have its next meeting on Tuesday, February 23, at 6:21 p.m. in Room 3 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. Our guest speaker will be Linda Kidd, M.S., LPC, NBCC. She will be talking about "The Career of a Counselor". All are welcome.

Writing Center Open

The campus Writing Center is located in English 107 and is open Monday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. All students are welcome to come and receive help with any type of writing assignment. They will not write your paper for you.

Mirror Drawing Task in Experimental Psychology

The Experimental Psychology students collected data on the bilateral transfer of learning. The mirror tracing task was difficult, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Psychology/Sociology Club

The Psychology/Sociology Club will meet on Tuesday, January 26, in Room 3 of the Psychology/Sociology Building. We will actually have two meetings that day, one at 1:00 p.m. and the other at 6:30 p.m. You don't need to come to both meetings. All are welcome.

Psychology and Law program

Applications are currently being accepted for the Psychology and Law Research and Experience for Undergraduates program at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. This program provides research training and coursework for undergraduate students interested in issues related to psychology and law. This is an in-residence program, meaning that participants live on the UNL campus for one year. It includes a $3200 stipend, a waiver for any tuition expenses above your own tuition, and room and board. This is an amazing opportunity.

The application deadline is March 1. For more information, visit the program's web site.