Dear Colleague:
I am writing to ask you to share information about the Ph.D. Program in Life-Span Developmental Psychology at West Virginia University with your faculty colleagues and students. Our program offers training in all age periods (infancy through late adulthood). Highlights of the program appear below. Additional information can be found on our website: http://www.wvu.edu/~psychology.
PROGRAM. WVU’s Psychology Department received the “Innovation in Graduate Education Award” from the American Psychological Association in 2006. The award recognizes the junior-colleague model used to train graduate students in research, teaching, and program/service evaluation. Graduate training is seen as modeling and instruction in a variety of professional skills and roles, only some of which are acquired in the classroom. As junior colleagues, students and faculty collaborate in research, rather than students serving as research assistants assigned to individual faculty. Students develop individualized plans of study. Contact among faculty and students outside the classroom is frequent and casual. WVU has an illustrious history in life-span development. Our program continues to provide in-depth training to the next generation of life-span developmental psychologists. Graduates are highly successful in obtaining employment and find positions in academia, government, research institutions, foundations, and applied settings.
A COMMITMENT TO STUDYING THE LIFESPAN. West Virginia University is recognized as the birthplace of life-span psychology. Graduate students specialize in life-span processes (e.g., cognitive or social development) and/or in an age period (infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, aging).
RESEARCH TRAINING. Initially, faculty provide a high degree of structure and guidance that is tailored to the students’ entry-level research design and data analysis skills. By the end of training, students have developed a research specialty and can successfully design and execute all stages of a research project (e.g., data collection, analysis, dissemination of findings). Students attend professional conferences and present their research to regional, national, and international audiences. Students submit their work for publication in scholarly journals and books. The department and college provide funds to support student research and travel to conferences. Funding via research assistantships is often available.
TEACHING TRAINING. Graduate students receive structured, supervised, hands-on teaching experience. Students become proficient in a variety of teaching technologies and methods. When teaching for the first time, students enroll in a teaching seminar and learn lecture strategies, best practices for encouraging active learning, leading discussions, classroom management, assessing student learning, and ethical issues. Students create a teaching portfolio and write a teaching philosophy. Students rapidly develop high-quality teaching skills within a single semester. Advanced graduate students may design and deliver a course in their specialty area. Funding via teaching assistantships is always available.
OUR STUDENTS. We value a wide range of ages and cultural backgrounds among our students. All students receive 4 years of financial support via assistantships (3 years if entering with a Master’s degree), plus a tuition waiver.
THE LIFE SCIENCES BUILDING. The $57 million award-winning Life Sciences Building houses state-of-the-art research and teaching facilities. Each graduate student has an office and a computer with internet access and the latest software (e.g., SPSS, Word). Graduate students conduct research in faculty member’s laboratories, and in off-campus locations (e.g., schools, senior centers).
WVU & MORGANTOWN. WVU has an enrollment of over 26,000 students and is a Carnegie Research Extensive University. WVU has highly successful Big East sports teams, intramural sports, plays, concerts, lectures, symphony, a $34 million Student Recreation Center, and other leisure activities. Visit .
Faculty Research Interests & Contact Information
Stanley H. Cohen. Applied gerontology, quantitative methods, and instructional technology. Stanley.Cohen@mail.wvu.edu
Amy Gentzler. Emotion regulation in childhood and adolescence, adult attachment, memory of emotional experiences. Amy.Gentzler@mail.wvu.edu
Katherine Karraker. Socioemotional development in infancy, adult perception of infants. Katherine.Karraker@mail.wvu.edu
Hawley Montgomery-Downs. Pediatric sleep and sleep disorders, postpartum sleep disruption, relation between sleep and biobehavior, sleep instrumentation. Hawley.Montgomery-Downs@mail.wvu.edu
Julie Hicks Patrick. Social cognition, decision making, family caregiving in mid-life and old age. Julie.Patrick@mail.wvu.edu
JoNell Strough (Area Coordinator). Gender, friendship, collaborative everyday problem solving in adolescence through later adulthood. JoNell.Strough@mail.wvu.edu
INFORMATION & APPLICATION: Applications forms available online at: http://www.wvu.edu/~psychology/graduateprogram/applicationinfo. Or contact: Debra.Swinney@mail.wvu.edu, (304) 293-2001, ext 31628. APPLICATIONS DUE December 15.
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JoNell Strough, Ph.D.
Associate Professor & Coordinator,
Life-Span Developmental Program
Department of Psychology
53 Campus Drive
West Virginia University
Morgantown, WV 26506-6040
phone: (304) 293-2001 x31648
fax: 304.293.6606
email: JoNell.Strough@mail.wvu.eduOffice: 2212 Life Sciences Building
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