Issue link: http://ncumarketing.uberflip.com/i/1178974
14 Bettina Shapira, PhD | Chair, Department of Psychology Greetings Everyone and Happy Fall! I hope you enjoyed the summer. Much has happened since the last updates. In July, the annual symposium in Scottsdale took place and we celebrated graduation. The symposium and graduation were wonderful, informative, and for me personally, invigorating. It was wonderful to meet so many of you in person or virtually. This year the symposiumwas structured a bit differently, allowing more time for school and department breakout sessions. I think we took full advantage of this extra time together. We had great feedback about the school and department breakout sessions. It seems that the 30-minute round table sessions and the department session on Presence teaching in an online environment were some of the most popular and impactful sessions. Hence, we will continue our exploration of Presence teaching in an online environment during our October Faculty Focus Meeting. For me personally, graduation was touching and filled me with a feeling of purpose and pride. It is always good to see students achieving their dreams, and what was especially touching was to see so many students from our new MS programs graduating and walking across the stage. Besides experiencing this year's symposium and graduation, many things are happening in the department. First, please join me in welcoming Dr. Jamie Wernsman as a full time professor to the Department of Psychology. Dr. Wernsman holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from DePaul University. Dr. Wernsman's specialization is in Forensic Psychology. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Jamie Wernsman! With great pride, I would like to announce that the new PhD specialization in Counseling Psychology, which I have introduced in a previous edition, will go live in November. I want to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to everyone who worked on this specialization. In addition, we revised the Post Master Certificate in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology, which will also go live in November. We are currently working on revising the PhD Gender Diversity specialization. For the revision of this specialization, we created a taskforce that reviewed the old specialization and is now in the process of suggesting and implementing significant revisions. This is the first time we have a taskforce working on revising a specialization. Dr. Angie Stones, Dr. Beth D'Arrigo-Patrick and Dr. Kristopher Lichtanski are spearheading the taskforce. Their great work, knowledge, commitment, insight, and sincerity are the cornerstones of what will become the Psychology of Gender and Sexual Fluidity specialization. I want to thank Dr. Stones, Dr. D'Arrigo-Patrick and Dr. Lichtanski for taking on this task. As you can see, there are many exciting things happening in the Psychology Department. These advancements would not happen without your involvement and commitment. I want to thank you for your great work with your students, and for so many, your involvement in curriculum projects. Please know that all of your work and efforts do not go unnoticed and are greatly appreciated. Thank You!