UH Hilo Department of Psychology: Overview

Department of Psychology

University of Hawaii at Hilo

Department of Psychology: Overview

The UHH Department of Psychology is a growing department involved in numerous educational and research activities. Over the past 10 years the department has become one of the largest and most comprehensive academic units at the university. Judged by the numbers of educational programs offered, courses taught and students served, as well as faculty scholarly productivity, the department is also one of the most productive programs at UH Hilo.

Programs:

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology via Distance Learning (a cohort-type program delivered entirely in the DL format)
Masters of Arts in Counseling Psychology (with a specialization in Mental Health Counseling) .

Courses:

The Department offers a variety of upper- and lower division undergraduate courses, which cover all major substantive areas in Psychology as well as methodological issues. At the graduate level, the Department offers over 20 courses in counseling psychology. In addition to the regular courses, special topic courses are taught almost every semester. The Department also provides students with numerous opportunities to obtain research and clinical experience. Psychology courses are popular and fill up quickly during pre-registration. Students are advised to sign up for the courses they need as early as possible. By the beginning of the semester almost all of the Psychology courses can be closed.

Students:

The Department has the largest number of students in the College of Arts and Sciences and the second largest at the university. Overall, we have close to 330 students in our academic programs, including approximately 300 undergraduates and 30 graduate students. There has been an unprecedented increase in the number of our students over the past decade, and future growth is also expected, as the university continues to expand.

Faculty:

The Department currently consists of 14 full-time faculty (including 11 tenured, 2 tenure-track, and 1 non-tenurable appointments), 2 affiliate professors, and 2 part-time lecturers. All of our regular faculty hold terminal degrees in their field of study. Areas of faculty expertise include, but are not limited to, Animal Behavior, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Community Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Cross-Cultural Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Health Psychology, Neuroscience, Physiological Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Social Psychology, and Vocational Psychology. We anticipate hiring at least two additional faculty members in the near future. Currently, the Department is understaffed and has one of the worst faculty/student ratios at the university, 1 professor per 23 students.

Scholarly Activities:

The majority of Psychology faculty are actively involved in significant research. Many research programs conducted by the department's faculty have been supported by major grants from various federal agencies and produced a number of highly regarded publications. Most of our projects employ undergraduate and graduate students, who have not only actively participated in faculty research, but also made numerous conference presentations and co-authored papers published in scholarly journals.

Page updated: January 2012