Issue link: http://ncumarketing.uberflip.com/i/1071485
On December 13th we held our annual Winter Symposium. During the symposium, Dean Billings provided the Dean updates and shared findings from the NCU alumni Gallup study. The results of the study indicated that our alumni seem very satisfied with their NCU programs, especially when compared to other universities, including online and brick and mortar universities. You can be very proud of your work! During the symposium, the work of the SSBS committees was introduced, including: • The Faculty Development Committee, represented by Dr. Mary Streit • The Retention Committee, represented by Dr. Lisa Teeter • The Diversity Committee, represented by Dr. Lindsay Wright • The AIV Committee, represented by Dr. Daniel Pitchford • The Research Committee, represented by Dr. Richard Remedios. The committee co-chairs presented the mission of their committees, provided a brief overview of the work completed in 2018 and a look forward to 2019. This was very interesting. If you would like to learn more about the committees, please feel free to reach out to the committee co-chairs. During the symposium, Dr. Watters presented the curriculum wish list for 2019 for the Department of Psychology. The wish list includes a Master of Arts, with the specialization in Behavioral Analysis. We are planning to seek programmatic accreditation for this specialization. We will develop a new PhD specialization in Counseling Psychology. This specialization will be very attractive for professionals clinically licensed on a master's level – LPCs, for example. In addition, we will revise our PhD specialization in I/O Psychology, making it SIOP compliant (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) and, following the guidance of our PAC members, we will add an internship course. Lastly, we are planning to offer Bachelor Fast-forward programs that are mapped to all five Master of Science programs. This means that if a student is in a Bachelor Fast-forward program they will take three Master level courses that later can be transferred into the MS programs. Following the curriculum updates, Dr. Mull discussed the importance of completing all required rubrics. Next, Dr. Wright explained the internship process for students in the MS program. Following Dr. Rodriguez, Dr. MacDonald and Dr. Wright shared examples of internship placements and internship projects. We closed the symposium with a brief discussion on the PSY population trending, which I shared above. I want to thank all of you for making 2018 a great and successful year for the Department of Psychology. Your fantastic work with your students and your involvement in curriculum projects is greatly appreciated and keenly noted.