Today (Friday the 1st of May) is the last day of our semester. My classes ended yesterday and once again I am able to say that I did not have ONE bad class all semester - each of my classes presented amazing challenges and my students rose to those challenges. Final exams begin on Monday and I will construct my final this weekend, post the review on eCollege and continue grading papers and projects that were handed in last week. The projects from my Men & Masculinities course are amazing. Two of my students are in a relationship (I was clueless :)) and they wrote about how their relationship grew here at Saint Michael's College from friends to a "relationship" and their final project applied my class to their relationship. Two other students interviewed each other's mothers and used one of the chapters from William Pollack's seminal work - Real Boys to ask their mothers about such things as the expression "boys will be boys" and whether or not their mothers were pressured to "distance" themselves from their sons in middle school. These two young women then edited home movies into their video project showing their mothers WITH themselves (my students) and siblings when they were all young. An amazing effort. My Abnormal Psychology students submitted their Global Understanding papers in which they discussed three of the disorders/behaviors we have studied with someone from another country. While they all complain about this assignment when it is first assigned, once they undertake it, they learn so much and express that gratitude in their papers. Sports Psychology class ended with a showing of a video of Our Guys and a final discussion of Sports Moms and Dads. It is rewarding to see how much these students have learned about the connection between psychology and sports/athletics over the course a semester and I appreciated all of the extra effort that they put into their work.
A week ago today the Psychology Department held a day-long Symposium which featured seven honors presentations by our seniors, the Psi Chi (International Honor Society of Psychology) Induction of new members and new officers and three "poster" sessions featuring the work of over sixty of our students. While it is a draining and long day, it is amazing to see the variety of topics students in our department have investigated/researched/studied. Dr. Tony Richardson coordinated this Symposium and did a great job. I had the opportunity to meet many of my students' parents and I also took a lot of pictures which will be posted on both the department website and the department online newsletter.
Last night we held the Block M dinner which honored and recognized all of the achievements of our student-athletes. As the Faculty Athletic Representative, I am asked to speak and it was an honor to announce that 15% or 58 of our student-athletes had achieved a 3.5 or better. Combining academic excellence with a very time consuming schedule of practices and athletic competition is not an easy task. The thing that was MOST rewarding for me was that when I made that announcement the students broke out in spontaneous applause for their teammates and then when I also asked everyone with a 3.0 or better to rise the applause just continued. We struggle to keep the STUDENT in the student-athlete title but also challenge our students to achieve in the classroom as well as on the playing field and as I said last night: "We challenged you and you met our challenge - congratulations and thank you."
I am about to be interviewed by the local Fox News on the topic of the psychological implications of the current economic crisis on those who are losing their jobs so I have to get back to getting a few things done before that interview. A 15 minute interview may mean 10 seconds on the air but it will be interesting anyway. The Athletic Advisory Council which I chair will meet for the last time of the semester this afternoon and then at 5:00 I get to celebrate the end of the year with the Office of Multicultural Affairs at a dinner where our graduating seniors will be honored and recognized. This is always a wonderful tribute to those students who give so very much to this campus.
As always, please take good care, avoid the Swine Flu and keep the members of our military and our veterans in your thoughts and prayers.
Dave
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