Our Department’s theme of Psychology for the Public Good empowers our students & faculty to use their psychological knowledge to contribute to the common good and a more equitable society
Our department is dedicated to community-based learning initiatives and helping students cultivate their purpose & vocation.
As a community-based researcher, Professor Katy Morgan partners with schools and other youth-serving organizations to understand, promote, and sustain empowering community contexts where young people can engage in social change efforts and promote community wellbeing. Learn more about her Design Your Neighborhood initiatives and partnerships with other organizations.
The mission of the Grundy Safe Communities Coalition is to establish a safe, caring, drug-free community that supports local youth and families. Professor Kate Cammack and her students have been partnering with the GSCC to collect and analyze data on local adolescents’ perceptions, attitudes, and worldviews, to help inform evidence-based approaches to education and prevention.
Professor Sherry Hamby is the Founder and Director of Life Paths Research Center, which works to create spaces for scholars and advocates to gather and work toward a joint mission of reducing the burden of trauma and building resilience. Life Paths is also the home of ResilienceCon.
Professor Chris Silver co-hosts The Rural Voice, the official podcast of the National Rural Education Association. Professor Silver and his co-hosts consider common themes and experiences of teachers, parents, and administrators in elementary and secondary rural education.
Professor Karen Yu urges us to consider how we might apply what science tells us about how our minds work to all that we do and design, in ways that liberate and empower the full cognitive potential of each person. Better thinking—deeper, more creative, more nuanced, more expansive thinking—is arguably what we need most, with implications for our interactions, policies, and civic discourse.
In their new Being Human in STEM course, Professors Kristen Cecala (Biology) and Kate Cammack (Psychology & Neuroscience) supervised student-developed projects that leveraged data to cultivate belonging and inclusion with STEM fields at Sewanee. Cultivating students' sense of belonging in STEM helps to broaden the diversity of students who pursue, persist in, and complete STEM majors/minors and to expand scientific literacy within our communities.
