Outstanding Seniors Honored

It is a great time of year for all of our seniors with graduation just around the corner. This week, the department made special recognition of the exemplary work of several seniors in naming its annual arward winners. The Outstanding Academic Achievement Award in Psychology went to Julia Humphrey in recognition of her high GPA and well-rounded commitment to Psychology. Julia was also awarded the James D. Upson Award which honors a senior whose clinically-related research or service promotes community health and well-being. Her research examined the relationship between symptoms of anxiety and depression and quantitative reasoning skills. The department recognized two seniors with the Outstanding Research Award in Psychology. Mai-Han Nguyen (pictured) is an honors student whose research is entitled The Relationship Between Impulsivity and Judgment in a Poker Game - if you were wandering the Johnson Center at night and saw a poker game being filmed that wasn't World Series of Poker on location - that was Mai-Han's research. Sharing this award was Libby Anderson, a 3/2 program student whose research involved competitiveness. In addition to departmental senior awards, the Rollins College Division of Social Sciences also names an Outstanding Senior Scholar, and this year a Psychology senior - Julia Humphrey - was the recipient. The department extends warm congratulations to our award winners and to all of our soon-to-be graduates. Great job!

Developmental Psychology Students Throw Research Party

One of the great and wonderful resources of Rollins College is the Child Development and Student Research Center. While some large universities have laboratory schools, few colleges the size of Rollins can boast a facility that allows students of Developmental Psychology the opportunity to observe and research aspects of child development. On the final day of lab in Developmental Psychology, the students hosted a pizza party for the kids, their parents, and the Child Development Center staff. Over the course of the semester, each Psychology student prepared a portfolio of his or her "target child" that collected observations of social development, language and literacy, and math and science skills. The students presented these portfolios to the parents of the target child.

• The Rollins Child Development and Student Research Center

Honors In The Major

One of the yearly traditions in the Department of Psychology is the end-of-year research poster session in which Psychology students present their research. This year's session was on Friday, April 23, in the Johnson Center Lobby. While the poster session is open to all students doing research, this year's presentations were all given by students graduating with honors in the major. Poster presentations were provided by Julia Humphrey, Mai-Han Nguyen, Libby Anderson, and Megan Joyner. Julia's poster described her finding that scores on the Beck Depression Inventory were negatively correlated with a measure of proficiency in basic mathematical operations. Mai-Han's research demonstrated that high levels of impulsivety, assessed by standard psychological measures, was associated with poker players overestimating the strength of a poker hand. In related work, Megan's poster described the development of a new screening tool to improve the diagnosis of pathological gambling - the Multiple-Scale Pathological Gambling Instrument. Libby's poster described her finding that general competitiveness was negatively correlated with collectivism, the latter of which was positively correlated with a measure of healthy competitiveness. The poster session is always a celebration of the hard, rewarding work of our student researchers, and hopefully serves as inspiration to future students to get involved in research. If you are interested in honors in the major, check out the guide linked below.

• Honors In Psychology (guide)

Psychology Summer Scholars

As the school year ends, many faculty members turn their attention to scientific research. One of the great opportunities at Rollins College is the Student-Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program which is designed to provide funding and other resources to allow Rollins students to work collaboratively with a faculty mentor during the summer. The applications are competitive and come from all over the college. This year, three psychology faculty (Alice Davidson, Roger Ray, and Steven St. John) will serve as mentors to six scholarship recipients. Jeni Collins and Morgan Frost are funded to design experimental protocols for a study of the development of eating habits in school-aged children. Bennett Garfinkel and Shakirra Meghjee are conducting research on the taste system using animal models (apparatus pictured); Bennett is studying the effect of pH on salt sensitivity and Shakirra the taste modulating effect of the hormone oxytocin. Tiffany Frizzell is working on the topic of training sign language via an expert software system called Train-To-Code. Kaitlyn Reynolds will be studying the strategies children use to resolve conflicts through coding the written accounts of conflicts of Fern Creek Elementary students that she collected last year. Beyond the summer research scholarship, soon-to-be graduate Mai Han Nguyen will continue to analyze her thesis work with her mentor David Richard on the relationship between impulsivity and judgment using poker games as a model. It should be a busy and productive summer!

Students Inducted Into Psi Chi

Psi Chi is the internatinal honor society in Psychology, founded in 1929 for the purposes of encouraging, stimulating, and maintaining excellence in scholarship and advancing the science of Psychology. On Friday, April 23, the Rollins College Psi Chi Chapter inducted 16 new members into the society: Hannah Beryl, Jeni Collins, Tiffany Frizzell, Laurie Hendrickson, Kristina Howanski, Elyse Huss, Jack Jordan, Leah Lipman, Monica Meadows, Heather Miksa, Kristina Moncrieffe, Jennifer Palmer, Russell Sanford, Lynn Slivinski, Tara Spalding, and Deb Tatum. The ceremony was hosted by Psi Chi officers Kaitlin Reynolds and Ali Kren and member Morgan Frost and was attended by several faculty members. Psi Chi sponsors events throughout the year and invites any interested student, member or not. Congratulations to the new inductees.

• Psi Chi Honor Society

Fern Creek Students Visit Rollins

On March 24, a group of fifth grade students from Fern Creek Elementary School joined Dr. Ruiz's Learning class for a morning of learning and sharing. Dr. Ruiz's students presented a Learning workshop including games and prizes for the Fern Creek students who learned about "Reinforcement In Our Lives". The event took place in the Operant Lab where the Learning students demonstrated principles of reinforcement with lab animals and our Fern Creek guests participated as helpers. The students appreciated the opportunity to get to know our young friends and they were excited to vist a scientific lab and, as one student put it, spend time "doing psychology". The Pathways To College Day is a campus tradition designed to show children that college is attainable and to encourage them to envision themselves as a future collegian.

• Pathways to College (R-Net story)

Summit On Transforming Learning Psychology Presentation

On March 19, the 5th Annual Summit On Transforming Learning took place on the Rollins campus. The summit is designed to "bring together faculty, staff, students, and community partners to engage in an afternoon of conversation around global citizenship and responsible leadership." The Summit serves as an opportunity for campus citizens to exchange ideas about best practices in education both inside and outside the classroom. This year's event featured a panel discussion hosted by Dr. Alice Davidson (pictured) along with five of her students - Rebecca Robertson, Cait Campbell (both pictured), Julia Humphrey, Kaitlyn Reynolds, and Elyse Huss. The panel discussed the joys and challenges of doing school-based research with elementary-aged children.