Ψ Psychology Newsletter Ψ Volume 4. Issue 1 http://www.usq.edu.au/faculty/science/depts/psych/psych.ht April 2000 Head of Department Column Professor Gerard J Fogarty A warm welcome to all our new students and welcome back to everyone else. We have about 300 new first year students, and about 15 new students in our Masters and Doctor of Psychology programmes, including some from overseas (South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Israel). When the Fourth Year and PhD students are added, I see that total numbers in the Department continue to hover around the 1100 mark. A very healthy enrolment indeed. On the staffing front, we are delighted to have some new faces in the team. Let me introduce them in the order in which they were appointed. Dr Robert Closs, who comes to us from Toledo in the American mid-West (I hope he does not read what Remo Ostini says about the mid-West later in this newsletter!). Robert’s speciality is counselling and I am happy to say that although primarily involved in Fourth Year and Masters programmes, Robert is also the unit Examiner for Counselling Psychology in the undergraduate course, so his expertise will benefit many students. Robert is living near the campus with his wife Pam, a primary school teacher, and son Paul, a high school student. Apart from the fact that he keeps forgetting the keys to his office door and has to borrow my master key, he appears to be settling in very well. Andrea-Lamont Mills is the second of our new staff members. Andrea is completing a PhD through USQ on the topic of gender issues in sport and will assist in the sport psychology programme as well as taking on the semester 2 offering of Foundation Psychology. Her main task this year (apart from running 69100 in S2) is to develop a new unit in sport psychology for the undergraduate course, to be offered as a Psychology elective for the first time in S2, 2000 (D & X). I know from the many enquires received over the years that this will prove to be popular elective. The third new member of staff is Marcella Cullin. Marcella is also a current postgraduate student who brings to the Department further depth and experience in the counselling area. Her main duties are associated with the offering of our Master of Counselling course in Singapore, so few of you will see her in the classroom. Marcella’s other principal duty is acting as the Coordinator of the Psychology Clinic, located on the ground floor of our building. This Clinic is an important part of our postgraduate training programme and Masters students will see plenty of Marcella in that capacity. Offers have been made to three other academics, all located overseas, to fill the vacant positions in sport psychology, social psychology, and statistics. Still on staffing, Dr Tony Machin and Dr Gerry Tehan are currently overseas on study leave. Both will be back for S2. I will take study leave in the second semester and plan to be absent from campus for a reasonable proportion of that time. In closing my column, may I congratulate the 150 or so Psychology graduates at the recent ceremonies in Singapore and Toowoomba. Seeing students graduate and sharing their excitement is still the I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E most rewarding part of an academic’s job. Head of Department Column 1 Undergraduate Course Coordinator Column 2 Off-Shore Coordinator Column 3 Good luck in the forthcoming exams. Sport & Exercise Psychology Column 3 Special best wishes to Andrew Trim Health Psychology Column 6 (Year 1) competing for Australia as a Reflections from a Foreign Land 6 canoeist in the World Cup, preparatory to Academic Development Leave 7 competing in the Olympic Games later Participants Needed for Study of Adult Adoptees 7 this year. Psychology Clinic 8 T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f S o u t h e r n Q u e e n s l a n d Undergraduate Course Coordinator Column Mr Terry Carter First of all I am pleased to say that there are no major changes to the course to report to you this time. I will however run through some of the other changes and things that have been happening here since you least heard from us. In the year 2001 the University is moving to a three roughly equal semester system. This will cause quite a few changes in most of the courses offered, but the Psychology Department has decided not to change any of its offerings for the year 2001. This means that things that are currently being taught in semester 1 will still be taught in Semester 1 next year, and so on. There may however be some changes in the year 2002. The time came recently for our courses to be re-accredited by Australian Psychological Society. The accreditation team came and visited us and examined exhaustively all our courses both here and overseas, including a site visit to Singapore. You will be pleased to know that all our courses have again been unconditionally accredited. On a slightly gloomier note the time also came around for "show cause". This means that I review the progress of all students and decide who has a case to answer - ie. They must "show cause" - why they should not be excluded from the course. We sent out 61 such letters to students and on the basis of their replies, 19 were permitted to continue. There are actually a couple of other changes I should mention to you. First of all we are hoping to introduce in 2001 in both the internal and external modes, an elective unit in Sport Psychology. This should prove very popular. Another change, but not of our making, is that the University is changing to what is called an alphanumeric system of identifying units. This will involve enormous changes to almost all of the courses, in terms of their identifying number, but not for us. For all courses the first two numbers, for eg 69*** will be replaced by a three letter code identifying the discipline. The next number should indicate the level of the offering. As I say there will be enormous changes to most courses but fortunately we had already logically organised our numbering system in that way, so the last three numbers of the units in your course will not change. This will make it easier for you and certainly for the course coordinators to know what units are the same as previous ones. For instance, Personality and Motivation 69202 will simply become PSY202. It maybe necessary to add another digit which will be 0 somewhere or other in there, but at least our course will have minimal changes and you should still be able to work out where you are in terms of the old and new numbering system. I should perhaps also mention that Foundation Psychology and Personality and Motivation are now On- Line ie. They can be studied over the Internet, unfortunately not for HECS based students as most of your are. However, there is a new service offered online. Go on an eGO-Trip The USQ Library has designed an electronic, interactive Internet training program called eGO - electronic GO DO IT! A self-paced learning program consisting of eight separate modules, eGO teaches student show to use the Internet, helps them increase their search skills and supports their studies. Whether you need some help finding journal articles from the Library's Electronic Database, or you're not quite sure how to use the Library's Catalogue or you would like to search for information on the World Wide Web, but don't know where to start, eGO will help you. In addition, if you're unsure how to evaluate or reference the material you've found, you can learn how to do this in the eGO tutorials. Students can access this helpful Library program by going to the Library Home Page, and clicking on eGO or by coming in via USQ Connect, clicking on Reference, then clicking on eGO. You can use eGO in the Library, the Computer Labs in K and S blocks or from home. You know the old jokes about good news and bad news. Well, this time there is only good news. A new Undergraduate Course Coordinator will be appointed for 2001 because at last I have decided to retire. Since this is the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Psychology Department, gifts of silver would be appreciated, but gold preferred. Goodbye, good luck and God bless. Psychology Newsletter 2 Off-Shore Coordinator Column Dr Gerry Tehan I have been on sabbatical for the past three months and have passed on the maintenance of the off- shore program to my colleagues, Mr Terry Carter and Mr Bill Bryon. I would like to thank them for their efforts. Staff once again visited Singapore to conduct teaching schools and again came away impressed with how enthusiastic and how welcoming our Singaporean students are. Thanks once again for your hospitality. Again, as usual, we have had the occasional problem with telephone links and the odd video conference has had to be re-run. This is one facet of our program that both students and lecturers find very annoying but it is something that we have absolutely no control over. The last time I was in Singapore (last December) two very important events were taking place.