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The Department of Psychology at SIUC: A Brief History

Robbie Lieberman, Professor of History (Spring 1999)

The department of Psychology has come a long way in the past 30 to 40 years. As some key people retire or move on to other positions, it seems a good time to reflect on the department's past and consider where it is heading in the future.

Faculty who began their careers here in the 1960s came to a small department whose facilities were located in a number of small houses on Forest, Whitney, and Elizabeth streets. The department was expanding rapidly along with the rest of the University. Some faculty came on soft money, as state grants were relatively easy to get. The department graduated its first two Ph.D.s in 1960, in Clinical and Counseling. Experimental granted its first Ph.D. in 1964. By 1971 the department had granted 100 doctorates, 500 by 1996.

There were about 30 faculty by the early 1970s, when the department moved to its current headquarters in Life Sciences II. While the physical facilities and the size of the faculty have been relatively constant since then, many other aspects of the psychology program have changed. By the mid-1970s, the program in Industrial Psychology had folded (the wife of the head of this program became the first female mayor of Carbondale), as had the Bioclinical program, while the Rehabilitation Institute split off to become more independent.

Reflecting changes in the economy and the profession, the department expanded training for non-academic careers. On the graduate level, faculty developed an Applied Psychology program, one of the first of its kind, which became a model for others. On the undergraduate level, a faculty committee overhauled the program, changing the major requirements to emphasize preparing students for the work world not just for graduate school. The number of undergraduate majors peaked at about 550 in the late 1980s, remaining high through the mid 1990s, and declining to about 350 by 2000.

As federal money dried up, the department could no longer count on funding 10 to 15 students with graduate training grants from the National Institute for Mental health. From the mid-1970s on, there was a shift toward more training assignments outside the department. While all graduate students still receive four years of support, the nature of their training assignments has changed, from an emphasis on research to an almost equal proportion in teaching, research, and diverse forms of service.

Another trend in the graduate program has been an enormous increase in the proportion of female students. Whereas thirty years ago the vast majority of graduate students were male, today females outnumber males by about two to one. The proportion of graduate students who are minorities has also increased significantly since the mid-1960s, from zero to about twenty per cent. In fact the department has received national recognition for its recruitment and graduation of minority students. However, like the rest of the university, the department has had a hard time recruiting and retaining minority faculty, in spite of concerted efforts to do so .

The department is noteworthy for the numbers and quality of women on the faculty. The department's first female faculty member, Jan Rafferty, has been quoted as saying (in the mid-70s) in response to a question about women, “We're just all psychologists.” Many women on the faculty today echo this sentiment that gender is not an issue in the department. Women are recruited for their talent, not to fulfill affirmative action requirements. This seems to be in part a reflection of the profession, but the department also appears to have been ahead of its time on women's issues. For instance, one woman was pregnant when she went up for promotion in the 1970s, and the chair and the department did not hesitate to support her case. At the same time, there are still not many full professors who are women, though this is likely to change in the next few years.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of the department is its system of governance. Psychology has had only three chairs in the past four decades—Dave Ehrenfreund, Jim McHose, and Alan Vaux. For much of that time the department has functioned on a consensus model, wherein important decisions are made by the whole department after discussion of the issues. This may not be the most efficient way to run a department, but it creates a collegial and supportive atmosphere in which faculty put the needs of the department first. Thus each program is not simply out for itself, and there are few turf battles. Faculty who have been here for several decades cite the cohesiveness of the department as a strength, while those who have been here not quite that long also mention the collaborative nature of the faculty as something that attracted them to SIU.

It is not only the friendly and cooperative attitude of the faculty that attracts people to come here, but also the talent. The department has had many well-known faculty, as well as Ph.D.s who have gone on to make a big impact on the profession. Yet it has remained an open and supportive department. While it has limited resources, these are distributed in such a way as to favor junior faculty.

The department celebrated the granting of its 500th Ph.D. in 1996. This was an opportunity to hear from successful graduates, acknowledge the strengths of the department, recognize how it has changed over the years, and broaden the base of alumni support. The department needs to keep all these things in mind as it plans for the future.

As people retire or leave to pursue other opportunities, and as many changes take place on campus that affect the department—such as recruiting and hiring of new administrators, concerted efforts to secure more funding from the state for SIUC, the Faculty Association bargaining for the next contract, an undergraduate population that appears at times to be ill-prepared for college life—there are many issues that require the faculty's attention. These include questions about how to obtain greater resources for the department, not just from the state legislature and the university administration, but also from grants. The department is beginning to do some strategic planning about what sorts of areas in which to hire for the future. A proposal for a new area in Brain and Cognitive Sciences illustrates that the Experimental program is doing some serious rethinking about its mission and its focus. While the undergraduate program is also healthy, and in some ways more active in the past (with the revival of the Psychology Club, for example), it is clear that the program has several issues that require attention. These include clarifying the role of teaching assistants, finding more opportunities for internships, structuring advisement so that it involves more contact with faculty, and figuring out who will teach and coordinate the introductory course in the long term.

Post-script (by Alan Vaux, Chair, 8/2000) . The period 1996-2000 has been a turbulent time for the Department. Historically a very stable faculty of about 28, the Department lost 12 faculty during these four years. Most were senior faculty who retired, and some left for extremely attractive new positions or for personal reasons. Anticipating the retirements, faculty had engaged in considerable planning about future directions. We have hired nine superb new faculty, and there is a real sense of a department reborn, beginning a grand new era. The graduate programs in Clinical Psychology, Counseling Psychology, and Applied Psychology all remain strong, and the new Brain and Cognitive Sciences program shows great promise—with three new faculty with expertise in computational modeling. There is every indication of greatly enhanced research productivity—more publications and grants, and a greater impact in various fields of scholarship.

The character of the Department has survived the turbulence of the past few years. Our organizational culture combines productivity and high standards with a congenial atmosphere. Graduate students and undergraduates face intellectual challenges, but in a friendly, student-oriented atmosphere. The Department has sustained its training assignment model providing graduate students with valuable experience in research, teaching, and service, while providing financial support through assistantships to all students for four years of study (approx. 80 students). We anticipate enhancing both support and assignment opportunities in coming years. Our undergraduate program too is subject to ongoing innovation. This program prepares some students for graduate school in Psychology, some for other graduate or professional training, and some for the workplace. We seek to incorporate knowledge from Vocational Psychology to yield a curriculum and choices that provide optimal preparation for students with diverse goals. We seek to incorporate computer-related skills to facilitate literacy, numeracy, and communication—skills that are at a premium in any field.

Our near-term goals are to retain a superb faculty and to support excellence in teaching, service, and especially in research. We plan to maintain top-quality graduate education in several areas of specialization, sustaining an outstanding record of career placement. We seek to make a good undergraduate program superb: reworking the curriculum, providing even more valuable advisement, and educating literate, numerate, articulate graduates with a knowledge of Psychology that will serve them well in a wide range of careers. I look forward with confidence and anticipatory pleasure to 2005, when these goals will have become achievements.