The Psychology Department was founded in Fall of 1964 and is part of the School of Arts and Sciences at the State University of New York at Cortland. At present the Department has 15 full-time faculty members, who specialize in a wide range of subareas in psychology, including: animal learning; sensation and perception; cognition and memory; educational psychology; infant, child and adolescent development; human factors; gender roles; and, exceptional children. In addition to maintaining laboratories for these areas of study, the Department has a fully networked computer facility with 28 work stations.
Students majoring in Psychology at SUNY Cortland may receive the bachelor of arts or the bachelor of science degree. Our major is designed to provide a broad base of understanding of psychology as a science - the methodology of the discipline, the principles and concepts in major areas, and selected areas of application. Major areas include research methods and assessment, normal and abnormal development, learning and motivation, physiological bases of behavior, and applied psychology in industrial, school and therapeutic settings. In addition to course work, many psychology majors choose to participate in independent and field study work with individual professors. For example, under these options students may become research assistants in professors' laboratories, work in field placements in the local community, or even serve as a teaching assistant in a professor's course.
Currently, the Department of Psychology has the largest major in Arts and Sciences, with approximately 225 majors enrolled. We also offer two minor programs, one in General Psychology and another in the Psychology of Exceptional Children. This latter program is specifically designed for students who wish to acquire an in-depth background working with children with special needs, and students majoring in psychology may also elect to minor in Exceptional Children. Qualified students may also choose to enroll in our Psychology Honors program, and we also have an active Psychology Club as well as an active chapter of Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology.
In addition to providing a strong liberal arts focus for majors not going beyond the bachelor's degree, the program is designed to provide a strong foundation for graduate school training in psychology and related fields. Within the last few years, graduates from our program have been accepted for the Ph.D.at SUNY-Albany (Counseling ), Lehigh University (School Psychology), Yale University, the J.D.at SUNY-Buffalo's (Law), the Psy.D. California School of Professional Psychology (Clinical and Forensic), and the MSW programs at Widener University, New York University, and Columbia University, to name a few.