November 2006:
Number 511
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A newsletter for the students, faculty and staff of the Collin County Community College District. Published monthly. For information or submissions, call 972.599.3142. Cougar News welcomes student and faculty submissions. Next deadline: Nov. 10 All submissions are due by 5 p.m. on the due date. Photos cannot be returned. Text should be emailed to mrobinson@ccccd.edu or sent on disk. Please submit copy that is proofed, edited and saved in Word format. Cougar News staff: Lisa Vasquez, director; Mark Robinson, editor; Marcy Cadena-Smith, contributor; Sydney Portilla-Diggs, student correspondent; Stephanie Hall, student correspondent; Ana Palmer, special contributor; Ginny Topfer, special contributor; Nick Young, photography and layout
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Collin hosts inaugural Psi Beta Synergy Conference
By Sydney Portilla-Diggs
Campus Correspondent
What does it say about Collin when it hosts such a significant conference?
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Dr. Stephen F. Davis, visiting professor of psychology from Texas Wesleyan University, held the keynote address at the Psi Beta Psychology Synergy Conference, Oct. 6 at the Spring Creek Campus.
Photo: Sara Dane Scott | According to Collin professor and co-advisor to Psi Beta Valerie Smith, “It says that Collin has an academically-engaged population with faculty and administrators who understand the primacy of professional development and active scholarship and a student body hungry for intellectually-challenging activities.”
More than 350 people attended the inaugural Psi Beta Psychology Synergy Conference, Oct. 6. For Collin Psychology professor and Psi Beta advisor Jennifer Brooks, the conference was a “dream that came to fruition.”
“This first ever [Psi Beta Psychology Conference] was meant to build bridges between high schools, community colleges, and college psychology academics,” said Brooks. Faculty, students and advisors from institutions as far away as California, Florida, North and South Carolina and Georgia and as near as McKinney High School attended concurrent sessions ranging from leadership training to fundraising to multicultural and honors psychology given by university and community college faculty and students from across the country.
After the first two sessions, the attendees were treated to a luncheon sponsored by Bedford Freeman Worth Publishers. The synergy—the cooperative interaction between groups of conference participants—was almost as dynamic and engaging as the sessions were. Participants discussed building awareness of Psi Beta on different campuses from the perspective of the academic faculty and setting up a networking system. Students were able to interact with professors from different colleges and gain direction about their prospective careers.
Collin Honors Student Cindy Padilla added, “There was not one moment where I wasn’t an active audience member.” Before the first keynote speaker, President Cary Israel provided the welcome to the Inaugural 2006 Psi Beta Psychology Synergy Conference. President Israel expressed enthusiasm that Collin was a leader in the field of psychology and expressed a desire to be strong in the liberal arts field as well.
On Friday afternoon, more than 200 attendees were intrigued by the thought-provoking keynote address “Cheating in High School is for a Grade, Cheating in College is for a Career: Academic Dishonesty in the 21st Century” by Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychology Dr. Stephen F. Davis of Texas Wesleyan University. His presentation gave an overview of academic dishonesty as it exists in the early 21st Century. Dr. Davis gave a brief description of the common methods students use to cheat, reasons students have for cheating, and discussed the escalation of cheating over the last half of the 20th century.
On Saturday morning, Dr. James Kalat’s keynote address titled “Recent Developments in Biological Psychology” attracted more than 100 attendees.
Dr. Kalat is a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University. He engaged his audience with a demonstration that turned the experience of eating chocolate into one of eating chalk. In addition, he discussed current issues in sensation, perception and a comprehensive overview of the problem of perceptual binding. According to Collin Honors student and Psi Beta Officer Elizabeth Oh, “The keynote speakers shared some significant and new findings in their studies.” Collin Honor’s student Matthew Ates was amazed by the overall conference.
“I left the conference feeling proud to have participated, and to be a student of the college that hosted it,” says Ates.
Ates attended professor Brooks’ session on “Teaching Honors Courses.”
Ates was surprised to see how many other colleges expressed difficulty implementing an honors program on their campuses due to lack of interest on the part of students and faculty or lack of support from the administration.
“I think Collin strives to be the best college it can be, and other colleges know that and wanted to come see first hand the energy we have here,” adds Ates.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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