When Your Department is in Great Shape

In my last post about the Departmental Consulting Service (DCS), I outlined the general process of working with a consultant for your department. I asked our consultants to share some examples of issues that they have dealt with in their consulting work. In the next few posts, I will summarize some of these issues by grouping them into three situations: (1) your department is doing well; (2) you know your department has problems; and (3) you don't know what problems you have.

Why would you want to hire a consultant if you are confident that your department is already in excellent condition? At many institutions, there is a regular program review process that may require some type of outside evaluation. For programs that are accredited by APA or some other organization, the accreditation process often satisfies the need for external review. When such accreditation is not involved, the administration at your college or university may request or require an external evaluation. There may be a particular desire to demonstrate that an academic program is "excellent" or "distinguished."

There are a few important issues you should keep in mind if you see yourself in this situation.

• If your goal is to have an outside evaluator confirm that your department is distinguished, you should not only communicate that goal, but what criteria you would like the consultant(s) to take into account.
  
• If your department has not already gone through a thorough self-evaluation process, I recommend that you do so prior to asking a consultant to confirm that you are in good shape. If your department has some weaknesses, it is better to identify those up front than to be surprised when a consultant identifies them for you.
  
• Don't expect a consultant to simply rubber-stamp your department's own self-assessment. Be prepared for an honest, open review process. Then, when the consultant writes a report indicating the excellence of your department, it will be meaningful. Also, keep in mind that the decision-makers at your institution may find a consultant's report more credible if it mentions areas for improvement in addition to highlighting the department's strengths.
  
• Even if the consultant's evaluation indicates a department that is in good shape, don't be surprised if the consultant offers some suggestions. The consultant may help the department anticipate future opportunities or challenges. For example, the consultant may notice that your department's standard of excellence is threatened by thin resources or an impending loss of faculty. Coming from a well-qualified external consultant, concerns such as these may provide some leverage for your department with the administration.
  

Remember that a good consultation process is a two-way street. You can make the most of the process by communicating with your consultant and listening carefully to the feedback that you receive.

STP on Facebook

Did you know that STP has a Facebook Group? One more way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues, and to stay in the loop on all things STP!

To access the group, you need to first be a member of Facebook. That's easy enough to do à Go to www.facebook.com, provide an email address and set up a password, provide your birthdate (to thwart under-age users) and you're in. Other than having someone else do it for you, this is about as easy as it gets.

Ok, once you're a Facebook member, you're welcome to join the STP Group. Within the Facebook pages, type "STP" in the search box in the upper right-hand corner. Look for the STP logo to make sure you've come to the right group, and please join us for conversation, pictures, laughs, and general good times.

Caveat: I can only speak for myself, but I'm not a great Facebook friend. Yes, I do mean well and enjoy my friends, but I'm not on Facebook on a regular basis. The only reason I'm sharing this is that perhaps others are as bad as I am with Facebook, so it might not be a good idea to rely exclusively on the Facebook Group to stay on top of STP news. It's always a good idea to visit the STP website for the latest and greatest news, but Facebook is a fun supplement. And, hey, if you're on Facebook anyway, it takes just a few seconds to get caught up with the Group and stay in the know.

So check us out on Facebook! Maybe I'll even see you in there from time to time. J

How Does a Departmental Review Work?

The most common type of request we get at the Departmental Consulting Service is a general one. Many departments request an overall evaluation of the department, or perhaps a review of the curriculum. If you are wondering how such a review would work, here is an overview.

• The most important aspect of the review is that it is tailored to the needs of your department. As you make arrangements with a consultant, you will discuss what the department hopes to accomplish with the review as well as details such as the time frame and expenses associated with the review. The consultant will work with you to customize the review. It will not be very helpful for the department to tell the consultant something vague like, "We just want someone to take a look at our department." If you can give the consultant specific ideas about your needs, the review process will make better use of your time and money.
  
• The department should expect to provide some information to the consultant prior to a site visit. The exact information that you supply will depend on what you want the consultant to do for you, as well as on what information you actually have available. Very likely, the DCS consultant will ask for specific types of information. Do your best to supply these materials in a timely manner.
  
• The structure of the site visit will again depend on what the department hopes to accomplish with the review. Typically, the consultant will want to meet with various groups and individuals (faculty, students, office staff, administrators), tour facilities, and possibly present some ideas or a preliminary report to the department.
  
• After the site visit, the consultant will submit a report to the department. Your department should review this report and decide what actions, if any, should be taken. For example, the consultant may recommend that a degree program be revised, that advising should be done in a different way, or that the department should change the way it makes decisions. After some deliberation, you may or may not agree with suggestions that the consultant has made.
  
• It is very helpful if the department can submit an evaluation of the consultant to the DCS coordinator at the end of the entire process. An evaluation form is included in the materials that I will send to you when you request a consultant.
  

In forthcoming posts, I will describe some examples of particular issues that have come up in departmental reviews. As always, if you are interesting in finding a consultant for your department, contact me at kreiner@ucmo.edu.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW OTRP RESOURCES

As new resources are posted on OTRP, I will try to give more information about what they contain than the brief description included at the site link. I will start with the resource most recently posted and then work backward in time. I hope these longer looks at the resources will tempt you to read the entire documents and find ways to use them in your classes or your professional life.

Four authors, William Altman, Jill Shulz, Kenneth Bordens, and Rhea Farberman, have collaborated to share their knowledge of how to work with local media in order to produce effective communication with the general public about psychology. The resource stems from a preconference workshop they delivered at the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology (Jan., 2008). Called "Taking it to the Streets: How to Give Psychology Away and Become a Local Media Hero," the 13-page document outlines guidelines for developing effective relationships with various media,  including newspapers, radio and television news or feature programs, and the internet. It is organized into 10 sections:

1. Get to Know the Media and Media Staff


2. Match your Stories to Their Needs


3. How to Prepare for an Interview or Pitch


4. How to Pitch a Story


5. Become the Perfect Source


6. If You Would Rather Write


7. Make it Easy for Media Professionals to Work with You


8. Links to More Information about Working with the Media


9. About Electronic Media (Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts )


10. Clips of Psychology Stories from Various Media

Although the resource is a series of bulleted points, it reads well, and the format allows the user to find information quickly. We have posted a pdf for those who want to easily print the document, but we also provide a link to Altman's internet site where the same 10 sections are separately presented and where the embedded links are live.

The authors do not directly address how teachers could use the information in classes, but if you include mass communication topics in your classes, you might want to share the resource directly with students or create assignments using the final section: sample clips of media stories.


Our journal, Teaching of Psychology, has published a few articles illustrating such assignments (e.g., Lawson, 1994; Rider, 1992; Schwarzmueller, 2006), so this new resource would provide students with a perspective on the constraints under which the media and psychologists operate.


The OTRP post is available at  http://www.apadiv2.org/otrp/resources/resources.php?category=Media


The internet site for this resource is http://web.sunybroome.edu/~altman_w/Bill_Projects/Working_with_the_Media/Psychologists_and_the_Media.htm

References


Lawson, T. J. (1994). The media assignment: Enhancing psychology students' ability to apply their knowledge of psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 21, 157-159.

Rider, E. A. (1992). Understanding and applying psychology through use of news clippings. Teaching of Psychology, 19, 161-163.

Schwarzmueller, A. (2006) Critiquing media depictions of forensic professionals: A project for students. Teaching of Psychology, 33, 205-207.

TeachPsych Links

As I was looking around the STP pages this week, I found the TeachPsych links. I'd actually found this before but it didn't make it into my long-term memory so I had to start looking again. Anyway, this is just one more example of all the great resources available to us within the STP pages.

The STP TeachPsych links can be found at http://teachpsych.org/resources/links/index.php. Once there, you'll see four different categories: General Resources, Organizations, Teaching/Pedagogical Resources, and Student Advisement. Each category has several great links and brief descriptions of the links to help you find the information you want. Some of the links you probably already have (or should have), such as a link to APA's Education Directorate. Others may pique your interest and become your new favorite go-to link for teaching of psychology.

Oh, and speaking of web links, I finally discovered Delicious (http://delicious.com). Ok, I'd heard about the site – mostly from Sue Frantz – but hadn't explored it first-hand. It was just hanging around on my to-do list. Well, my office computer died the first day of the semester (no lie!) and so I've been working on other computers for 4 weeks. These past few weeks reminded me how often I use my internet bookmarks, and how devastating it would be to lose them. Seriously, do you have all of your Favorites memorized? I didn't think so. The Delicious website allows you to store all of your sites on their site for safekeeping. It also includes a social networking component if you want to use that but, for right now, I'm just thrilled to have my favorite web links intact and backed up on Delicious. I'll be adding sites from the TeachPsych links page to my Delicious account, or maybe I'll just add the TeachPsych link itself. J

Project Syllabus: Psychology of Prejudice

You can find our Psychology of Prejudice syllabi cross-listed under Social and Special Topics.

Cyndi Kernahan's Psychology of Prejudice and Racism is our newest addition. She has her students submit two questions the morning of class for each reading that is due. Students also do weekly writings on a specific question.  The goal is to "identify, describe, and apply the concepts..."  Her most interesting assignment, though, is the plan of action paper.

"Plan of Action Paper: Plan of action papers will be due towards the end of the semester. These papers should be 6-8 typed, double-spaced pages (including at least 4 references). Specifically, these papers should outline a 'plan of action, that you feel you can take regarding prejudice and racism in our society. The format of the paper will require you to do some research on one or two problems that you feel you can take some action on. You will describe the problem and then describe what you would like to do, very specifically, about it. You may include in this a variety of ideas, ranging from simply discussing racial issues more in your classes/with your family or friends to more 'activist' ideas such as writing letters to elected officials or starting a discussion group about racial issues. Remember that this should be something you actually intend to do!"

She provides students with more detailed instructions.  Contact Cyndi at cynthia.kernahan@uwrf.edu.

George E. Schreer offers a seminar called Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination.  In addition to a research paper, students write weekly reaction papers.

"Weekly Reaction Papers of Assigned Readings (50% of final grade) Since a seminar relies heavily on discussion, it is imperative that you come to class prepared to contribute your newfound knowledge and insight. To accomplish this, reaction papers (1-2 pages single spaced) will be assigned on a regular basis. For the readings assigned: briefly summarize the major themes and ideas (what the researchers were trying to find out), methods (how they went about their task), and results and discussion (what they found and what it all means). While doing this, be sure to integrate together (make connections between) all the readings. In addition, the reaction papers should also include your own thoughts about the readings. Some important questions to consider are:

* How does the article apply to you or situations you might have experienced?

* What new questions, ideas, or testable hypotheses does the research raise?

* Can any theories be integrated with earlier material or applied to a different context?

* What new insights have you learned?"

OTRP’s Mentoring Services

As I continue exploring all the great things STP has to offer, I check out the OTRP pages quite a bit. Within OTRP (Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology), there are tons of resources for psychology teachers at all levels. Well, maybe not tons, but an impressive number (To be accurate, tons would require me to print them all off and weigh them, which I'm not willing to do). I want to share with you one particular resource that may not be on your radar, but should be.


From the Mentoring Services webpage -- http://teachpsych.org/otrp/mentoring/index.php -- the purpose of the Service is to "…enable teachers of psychology who have questions about pedagogical topics, methods, issues, or specific classes to identify and communicate with more experienced colleagues who are willing to provide them with answers to these questions and/or refer them to other sources of information." After reading that, who wouldn't find this service useful? I'll be the first to admit I don't know everything about the teaching of psychology. So why not turn to a friendly colleague through the Mentoring Service if I have questions about, say, starting a Psychology Club at my school? Sure, I could fumble around and take a stab at it myself, probably having some avoidable failures and false starts along the way. On the other hand, I could contact Peter, Martha, Liz, David, or Jeanne, who have each volunteered to be a mentor for this topic.


The reason I said the OTRP Mentoring Services may not be on your radar is that folks might think "mentoring" and assume it's only for early-career teachers, to help them get comfortable in the classroom. True, OTRP Mentoring Services can match you to that type of mentoring if that's what you're looking for, but the Service is there for things outside the classroom, too. Go ahead, check out the Mentoring Services website. Scroll down through all the mentoring links, especially the "Mentoring of topics, methods, and issues" link and the "Mentoring of courses" link. Like me, you may find yourself saying, "Wow! I wish I'd known about that".


Who knows, you might even decide to offer your own expertise to the Mentoring Services resource!