APA Monitor, the magazine of the American Psychological Association, takes a look at what progressive undergraduate psychology programs are doing to build closer-knit communities for students to prevent burnout, dropouts and anxiety. Belmont University’s psychology department is prominently featured in the article.
Here’s an excerpt from the story about Belmont:
From potluck dinners to student and faculty intramural teams, many departments offer student-faculty social activities to help them get to know one another.
Every fall, the psychology department at Belmont University in Nashville hosts a cookout to welcome new students and allow them to mingle with psychology faculty and officers in the university’s psychology clubs, such as Psi Chi and its Psychology Club.
“It helps humanize us,” says department chair Peter J. Giordano, PhD. “This helps break down barriers and makes students more comfortable in approaching faculty and talking to them informally.”
During the event, department faculty highlight psychology-related opportunities for students, such as how to plug into research and leadership.
Belmont faculty members also host Psi Chi student inductions at their homes with a dinner and ceremony. And they host a Psychology Undergraduate Research Symposium (PURS) to provide undergraduate students an opportunity to present their independent research. Last year, PURS became part of a broader Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium to also include other university undergraduate science departments and spark more interdisciplinary undergraduate science research.
You can read the whole article at APA Online.
