Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan co-presented a symposium with the president of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Andrea Halpern, in August at the Society for Music Perception and Cognition in Toronto, Canada. The symposium was titled “The Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching and Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions,” and it explored strategies to successfully balance teaching and research in institutions such as liberal arts schools. This is an important topic because only about 8 percent of the society’s faculty members are at primarily undergraduate institutions. At the conference, Tan and her co-editors and co-authors were also present at Oxford University Press’ promotion for their new book The Psychology of Music in Multimedia. The photo shows Siu-Lan Tan (center) with two chapter authors at left (l-r: David Bashwiner and Mark Shevy) and two co-editors at right (l-r: Scott Lipscomb and Annabel Cohen). Sixteen other authors were involved in the book, residing in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Hong Kong, and Israel.
psychology
Psych of Music
A book co-edited and co-authored by Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan was published this summer by Oxford University Press (United Kingdom). The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (edited by Siu-Lan Tan, Annabel J. Cohen, Scott D. Lipscomb, and Roger A. Kendall) is the first book to consolidate the scientific research on how we integrate sound and image when engaging with film, television, video, interactive games, and computer interfaces. Tan served as primary editor of this edited volume, which includes the work of 20 contributors representing seven countries and a wide range of disciplines including psychology, musicology, neuroscience, media studies, film, and communication. She also contributed three chapters, including one on the role of sound and music in video games. Research studies co-authored by Tan and Kalamazoo College alumni Matthew Bezdek ’07, John Baxa ’09, and Elizabeth Wakefield ’08 are also discussed in the book.
Psychology Major’s Research Accepted for Publication
Psychology major Mara Richman ’15 is second author on a paper selected for publication. The paper is titled “Neurocognitive Functioning in Patients with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: A Meta-Analytic Review,” and it will be featured in an upcoming issue in the Journal of the Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry. Co-authors include Paul Moberg, Ph.D.; Chelsea Morse, M.S.; Vidyaluta Kamath, Ph.D.; Ruben Gur, Ph.D.; and Racquel Gur, M.D., Ph.D. Last fall Richman studied and worked under the research supervision of Moberg at the University Of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) Perelman School Of Medicine’s Schizophrenia Research Center.
Richman’s research has prompted her to become further involved in mental health and psychology research. This summer she is doing work at a summer research institute at the University of South Florida (Tampa). She was selected from a field of 200 people to attend the institute. Her research there (under the mentorship of Kathleen Moore, Ph.D., and Blake Barrett, M.S.P.H.) focuses on co-occurring mental health disorders in the drug court system. Titled “Findings from a drug court program of female offenders with co-occurring disorders,” her work has been presented twice this summer at conferences and will be revised for publication this fall.
Kalamazoo College Senior Faiza Fayyaz Is a YWCA Young Woman of Achievement
Kalamazoo College senior Faiza Fayyaz has received a 2013 YWCA Young Women of Achievement Award and will be honored at the 29th annual YWCA Women of Achievement Award Celebration, on Tuesday, May 21, 5:30 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel & Suites in Kalamazoo.
The YWCA Young Women of Achievement Awards are given to high school and college age women in the Kalamazoo community who have records of accomplishment in academic studies and extracurricular activities, have made significant contributions to their school and/or community, demonstrate leadership ability, and exemplify qualities of character and thought consistent with the mission and vision of the YWCA.
Faiza will soon earn her B.A. degree in biology with a minor in psychology and a concentration in health sciences. She has also been a biology research assistant at Western Michigan University. Outside the classroom, Faiza has been active in student organizations Active Minds (focusing on mental health issues among college students) and KDesi (working to preserve and promote South Asian cultures and religions on the K campus and in the surrounding community).
Through the College′s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service Learning, Faiza has also spent many hours engaged with students from the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency (KRESA) Young Adult Program at West Campus school, She has also been engaged in civic activities at Borgess Hospital and in a local physical therapy clinic.
Earlier this month, the YWCA announced that Kalamazoo College trustee Ronda Stryker is its recipient of the Lifetime Woman of Achievement Award.
Lux Esto. Forever.
What would you do to remind yourself and others just how much you loved and appreciated your college experience—assuming you only have about $100 to spend?
You’ll have to go a ways to top Jillian McLaughlin ’10 who recently treated herself to a tattoo just below her left ribcage of “Lux Esto,” K’s Latin motto that means “Be Light.”
“In the past few years, I have really come to appreciate the unique undergraduate experience I had at K and the friendships forged,” said Jillian, a Grosse Pointe (Mich.) native now working for an anti-poverty think-tank in Boston.
“I suppose I could have bought a T-shirt or a mug but a tattoo of ‘Lux Esto’ seemed more epic. So that’s what I did.”
Jillian’s K experience was a full one. She ran on the Hornet cross country team, wrote for The Index student newspaper, worked as a student sustainability coordinator in the College’s Facilities Management Division, and conducted research into political ideology with K Professor of Psychology Gary Gregg. She also served as an intern in U.S. Senator Carl Levin’s office in Washington, D.C.
During her senior year, the political science major earned a departmental award to travel to Spain and conduct interviews on international human rights law for her Senior Individualized Project, or SIP.
“It sounds corny, but no matter where I am, I feel like I’m at home when I’m around other K grads,” Jillian said. “As I get ready to attend graduate school [in pursuit of an MBA on nonprofit management and impact investing], I wanted a reminder of that experience.”
She said the tattoo idea was the brainchild of her K classmate and friend Anne Renaud ’10.
“She joked about getting ‘Lux Esto’ tattoos before we graduated. It didn’t happen but the seeds of my decision were planted.”
Thanks for honoring your alma mater, Jillian. You’ll be glad to know that your tattoo complies with the College’s new branding guidelines for typefaces!
Jaime Franks ’10 Featured by Social Workers Michigan Chapter
Jaime Franks ′10 is featured in the Jan-Feb 2013 magazine of the National Association of Social Workers — Michigan Chapter. Jaime is pursuing an advanced degree in social work at Wayne State University. After graduation, she intends to help children and adolescents in a hospital setting.
While at Kalamazoo College, Jaime played on the women’s soccer team, and served as the Athletic Leadership Council’s treasurer. She majored in psychology and worked as a teaching assistant in the department. Her SIP was on body image and eating disorders.
Well done, Jaime!
Kalamazoo College Alumna Helps Develop Bicycle Safety Simulator
Jodie Plumert ’85, professor and chair of psychology at the University of Iowa is helping lead a joint research project with the University’s computer science department to develop a simulator that uses virtual environment technology to study children’s decision making process when riding a bike. The simulator employs a stationary bicycle sitting in the middle of three large screens and equipped to feed real-time information into a computer network, which creates an interactive virtual environment. Bicyclists “ride” up to a simulated intersection, assess the traffic “crossing” on the screens around them, then determine when it’s safe for them to cross. Read more about Jodie and her research on her UI webpage.
Check out the video below where Jodie helps demonstrate the simulator.
Professor Péter Érdi Speaks at European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research
Péter Érdi, Psychology and Complex Systems Studies, was a keynote speaker and a round table participant at the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research that took place at the University of Vienna in April.
His talk was a memorial lecture on Luigi Ricciardi, a longstanding participant in the EMCSR, against the background of the development of systems thinking in biology. The round table in which Érdi participated focused on the past, present, and future of cybernetics and systems research.
Spaces of Great Character
It’s not high tech. It’s not “trendy.” It is large – with the height spanning two stories and featuring large windows streaming an abundance of natural light. The Yehle Reading Room in Kalamazoo College’s Upjohn Library Commons is rightly called a “Space of Great Character” in an article in Psychology Today.
Writer Ann Sloan Devlin encourages the development of spaces that promote concentration and creativity and wrote how such spaces are becoming rare in newer college and university buildings. She cited the Yehle Reading Room and a similar space at Connecticut College as “precisely the kinds of spaces that students today need to encourage thinking.”
Let’s hear it for meditative space—and time, part of the More in Four that is Kalamazoo College.
Tan Earns Lucasse Lectureship
By Rachel Leider ’15
Siu-Lan Tan, associate professor of psychology, has earned Kalamazoo College’s highest annual honor for classroom teaching, the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching.
The “Lucasse,” was established in 1979 in honor of Florence J. Lucasse, Class of 1910, in response to the major unrestricted endowment gift she bequeathed to the College in her will. In addition to the Lectureship, a Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship is also awarded. Andrew Mozina, associate professor of English, holds the current Lucasse Fellowship.
Tan was taken aback by her award: “I think the world of my colleagues and students, and knowing that they nominated and supported me for this was overwhelming. I immediately teared up, as I felt it deeply.”
President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran expressed her admiration for Tan as she presented the award during the fall quarter all-campus gathering in Dalton Theatre on Sept. 20. “Professor Tan often extends students’ experiences beyond the classroom, and these service-learning experiences transform their learning, making concepts that may have once seemed dissonant in class become consonant in practice.”
Born in Indonesia, Tan grew up in Hong Kong where she taught music. After moving to California, she earned a B.A. degree in music at Pacific Union College and taught music for several years. Later, she became interested in psychology and earned both Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in psychology at Georgetown University.
Teaching at Kalamazoo College since 1998, Tan offers courses in developmental psychology, creativity, and the psychology of music. In 2010, she co-authored the textbook The Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance.
Per Lucasse tradition, Tan will speak to students, faculty, staff, and quests about her work at a spring 2012 lecture.
Congratulations, Dr. Tan!