When I arrived at the Salisbury University Psychology Department in 2007, I was lucky to discover a kindred academic spirit in Dr. J. Craig Clarke. In the years since, we have spent countless hours discussing cognition and perception, as well as debating the pedagogy of our discipline. Having adjacent offices in Holloway Hall, we would often dash from one to the other to share a research finding or a new mind-blowing visual illusion. And, later in the day, when things got really serious, we’d discuss the finer points of the music of the Beatles or Bob Dylan (whom we saw at the Civic Center in 2012).

Dr. Jason McCartney has been a member of the SU Psychology Department since fall 2002. He regularly teaches courses in Infancy and Childhood, Developmental Disabilities, General Psychology and a seminar on Nature-Nurture Issues. In fall 2020, he offered a Special Topics course on the Development of Self-Regulation. Past research interests have included infants’ attention to faces and voices, as well as factors impacting preschoolers’ self-regulation. His current research involves college teaching and assessing the effectiveness of seminars. He has collected data involving students’ level of interest, engagement, judgments of class productivity and memorable discussion topics. In the fall, Dr. McCartney will work with a student researcher to collect data on seminar courses offered in the Psychology Department.

Antiracism Training

The Racism and Coping Research Lab, supervised by Dr. Yuki Okubo, remained active during this Zoom-filled, unusual and taxing year. Lab members are Soleil Darbouze (joined in spring 2021), Caitlin Fell, Brielle Gourley, Jenna Hutson, Sebastian Mantilla, Leah Maratea (graduated in fall 2020) and Jennifer Welch. All students joined the lab wanting to learn more about racism and how to dismantle it, as a result of racist incidents that occurred on campus.

Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the past year, Dr. Heidi Fritz's research lab has investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental and physical health outcomes and on resilience factors that promote positive coping. Psychology students Sandra Zelaya, Ian Hare, Erica Hall, Sydney Steeves and Taylor Karnes helped Dr. Fritz design and run a study examining Salisbury University students' adjustment in February and March 2021 and compared their progress to SU students from three prior semesters.

What are you currently up to?

After returning home to New Jersey for a few years after graduation, I returned to Salisbury in July 2020. Right now, I am finishing up my master’s in school psychology at Montclair State University, which is in New Jersey. I am also completing a full-year internship as part of my program right here at Wicomico County Public Schools. Upon graduation and completion of my internship, I will stay with the district through the 2021-2022 school year as a full-time school psychologist! In this role, my main goal is to help students reach their potential and find personal success. In addition, my own personal goal is to raise awareness around the field of school psychology as a whole.