Category Archives: News

#WabashProud

Posted on by

To support our Psychology students simply select
Psych when making your gift.

Today, let’s show that we are Wabash Proud! If you aren’t already aware, Wabash is having another important day today and it would be great for you to join me in supporting the College. 

Last year on 4.22, the Wabash nation made a lasting impact on the College by raising over $500,000 from more than 2,500 donors. This day provided phenomenal opportunities and experiences for Wabash students, inspiring a group of alumni to challenge us to do it again. 

Adam Rains ’17 presenting at the Celebration of Student Research

 

In Psychology, your donations last year:

  • Helped send a recent graduate, Andy Walsh ’14, to present his graduate research at a conference in Switzerland.
  • Allowed us to send Adam Rains ’17 to present the results of his summer research at a national neuroscience conference in Chicago.
  • Purchased critical research materials for Max Gallivan ’16, who has spent his senior year testing the effectiveness of new drug treatments for cognitive deficits in a rat model of diabetes.

In total, donations from last year’s Day of Giving have had an enormous impact on our current students and graduates, and we are very grateful for your support!

Today, we are focusing on all of the reasons that we are #WabashProud, for our department, we are very proud of the work that our students accomplish. This year, we are raising funds to support two current students, Carson Powell ’17 and Nigel Dao ’18, who will be completing summer research internships this year. We are hoping to raise enough funds to send both men to the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego in November, and to support other research projects and professional development of our students. We think that this will be an excellent opportunity for both Carson and Nigel, hope you will consider donating to the Special Psychology Fund today to support them and other Psychology students. 

I am asking you to show you are Wabash Proud by making a gift today. With your help, Wabash will receive over $170,000 in lead challenge gifts if 2,700 alumni, friends, and family give on 4.27. This money will be unlocked as we hit four benchmarks throughout the day. 

For every gift made to the Special Psychology Fund, the Psychology faculty will match $10 dollars up to $850!  To support Wabash and our Psychology students, when making your gift at www.wabash.edu/427, simply select Psych from the drop‐down menu. 

Join me in showing you are Wabash Proud today!  Support Wabash students and encourage others to do the same! 

Best wishes, and thank you again for your support, 

Neil Schmitzer-Torbert
Daniel F. Evans Associate Professor in Social Sciences
Department of Psychology, Chair

2015 Awards

Posted on by

Each year, the Psychology Department gives out two awards, the Distinguished Senior in Psychology, and the Capstone Award. The Distinguished Senior in Psychology Award is given each year to the senior major who best represents the department’s ideal for outstanding scholarship, research and service, while the Senior Capstone Award is given each year to the senior major who completes the top senior capstone research project. The Capstone Award considers the scope of the senior capstone, the initiative of the major in completing it, and the public presentations that the senior makes (including our Psychology Research Symposium poster session).

At Awards Chapel in April, Yunan “Charles” Wu ’15 was announced to be the Distinguished Senior in Psychology. Charles came to Wabash from Fujian, China. During his time at Wabash, Charles worked with Dr. Gunther on a summer research project, Dr. Horton on an independent study project, and completed summer

Yunan “Charles” Wu ’15 presenting his summer research at Harvard University

internships at both Harvard and Stanford University. For his capstone project, Charles continued his summer research project at Stanford, studying how children interpret inferences in a sentence. Next year, Charles will begin his doctoral studies at Carnegie Mellon University in the area of auditory neuroscience, studying the neural mechanisms underlying how children and adults perceive speech sounds with Dr. Lori Holt.

In addition to his work in psychology, Charles is a double-major in German major and a math minor. He was also involved in the music department and has had several piano recitals in the past few years.

This year, Adam Boehm received the 2015 Capstone Award, for his project: The effects of pornography on male attention and outlook towards women. Adam is a Crawfordsville native and attended Crawfordsville High School. He is a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, was a pitcher for the Wabash Baseball team, and was an active member of College Mentors for Kids.

Adam Boehm’s poster summarizing his capstone research project.

After Wabash, Adam plans to take a gap year before attending graduate school to pursue his PhD in either psychology or neuroscience. He would like to continue his research on how pornography affects the brain, with hopes of helping young adults and adolescents understand the dangers of using pornography.

Go for 2 on 4.22

Posted on by

To support our Psychology students simply select
PsychSpecial650 when making your gift.

If you aren’t already aware, Wabash is having another important day today and it would be great for you to join me in supporting the College.

Brad Wise ’14 presenting his research in Washington D.C. at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting.

Last year on 4/30, the Wabash nation stepped to the plate and raised over $450,000 from 2,200 donors in the first‐ever Day of Giving.

In Psychology, the donations we received last year let us send a recent graduate, Brad Wise ’14, to Washington D.C. in November. Brad presented at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting on a research study that he conducted in a summer internship at Wabash, on the role of nitric oxide in sexual behavior in male rats. This was a great experience for Brad, as he plans to apply for graduate study in Psychology this year, and we could not have done it without your help!

Today, I am asking you to help us Go for 2 on 4.22. This year, we are raising funds for another recent graduate, Andy Walsh ’14.  Andy is a graduate student Sport and Exercise Psychology at Ball State, and he will be traveling to Switzerland next summer to present the results of his research.  Andy’s program will be covering the majority of the costs of his trip, but additional matching funds will be required to make this international trip happen.  We think that this will be an excellent opportunity for Andy, hope you will consider donating to the Special Psychology Fund today to support Andy and other Psychology students.

For every gift made to the Special Psychology Fund, the Psychology faculty will match $5 dollars up to $650!  To support Wabash and our Psychology students, when making your gift at www.wabash.edu/422, simply select PsychSpecial650 from the drop‐down menu.

Stand with me today in supporting Wabash and spread the word!

Best wishes, and thank you again for your support,

Neil Schmitzer-Torbert
Daniel F. Evans Associate Professor in Social Sciences
Department of Psychology, Chair

Psychology Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WabashPsych

Celebration of Student Research 2015

Posted on by

At the 15th annual Celebration of Student Research, Scholarship and Creativity, (Friday, January 23rd, from 1-4pm in Detchon International Hall) there will be four posters/talks by students conducting work in psychology. Two (by Colin Downey ’15 and Charles Wu ’15) describe work conducted in summer research internships, a third (by Lu Hong ’15) describes the results of an independent study, and the fourth (by Adam Boehm ’15, Daniel Bowes ’16, Keaton Holsinger ’15, Chris Stazinski ’15, Chase Young ’16, Niki Kazahaya ’18, & Adam Rains ’17) describes preliminary analyses from data collected on an immersion trip to Montreal last November.

[Edit: the Wabash web site has a nice write-up on the Celebration, including some quotes from Lu Hong ’15, who was presenting research projects in both Psychology and Chemistry]

If you happen to be on campus, we hope to see you at the Celebration this afternoon, and we are very impressed with the wide range of work that our students have done over the last year!

Posters – 1-2:30PM – Detchon International Hall
#3 Adam Boehm, Daniel Bowes, Keaton Holsinger, Chris Stazinski, Chase Young, Niki Kazahaya, & Adam Rains Differences in brain activations during memory-guided and GPS-guided wayfinding in a virtual city
#9 Colin Downey Non-cardinal color mechanisms: Stimulus size matters
#17 Lu Hong Assessing navigation performance in virtual environments on mobile devices

 

Talks
2:10PM Detchon 111 Yunan Wu How do children learn to access the unsaid?

 

Big Bash 2014 and the year in review

Posted on by

The Psychology Department welcomed alumni back to campus with a reception in the Haenisch Reading Room in Hays Hall, the department’s temporary quarters as renovation work is completed in Baxter Hall.

The Psychology Department reception for Big Bash was held on Saturday, in Hays Hall. We had a great time, and enjoyed catching up with alums who we’ve had as students, and meeting alums who graduated before many of the current department members arrived at Wabash.

Photos from the reception (courtesy of Steve Charles) are posted here. If you made it to Big Bash, we hope that you had a chance to catch up on the recent events at Wabash and in the Psychology Department (a post on our Fall newsletter is available here). We plan to send out another departmental newsletter in the fall, but for now, we wanted to put out a short update to follow up on our Big Bash reception.

 

Moses Brand ’57 (who attended the Psychology Department Big Bash reception in 2013) talks with Sherm Franz and Professor Rush.

Highlights from 2013-14:

  • Twenty-five senior psychology majors graduated this year. Each senior completed a year-long capstone research project, which he presented at the Butler Undergraduate Research Conference, and at our Psychology Research Symposium.
  • Dr. Olofson received tenure, and was named the McClain-McTurner-Arnold Research Fellow
  • Dr. Bost was promoted to full professor. Dr. Bost will also be serving as the College’s Institutional Research Officer for the next several years.
  • Dr. Schmitzer-Torbert was named Daniel F. Evans Associate Professor in the Social Sciences.
  • Dr. Rush joined the department in the fall, serving as Dr. Bost’s replacement during sabbatical and next year while Dr. Bost serves as our IR officer.  Dr. Rush came to Wabash from University of California, Riverside, and last year he taught Psychology and Law, Cognitive Psychology, Literature Review and Introduction to Psychology. Dr. Rush’s work focuses on memory and eyewitness testimony, and he is working with four Wabash students this summer in research.
  • Dr. Aubele-Futch accepted a tenure-track offer to join the faculty at St. Mary’s University. We will certainly miss her here, but wish her the best in her new position! Over the past two years, Dr. Aubele-Futch has taught in our neuroscience courses, Introduction to Psychology, Literature Review and Hormones and Behavior as a sabbatical replacement. Last summer, she worked with Brad Wise ’14 on a study of the effects of nitric oxide on sexual behavior in male rats, which Dr. Aubele-Futch and Brad will be presenting as the Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Washington, D.C., this fall.
  • Profs. Preston Bost, Robert Horton and Ryan Rush had research articles published in 2013, two of which included Wabash students as co-authors.
  • Another research article appeared in print this spring, describing work that Dr. Olofson conducted with three Wabash students in their senior capstone project on autism.
  • And Dr. Gunther had two articles come out in print this spring, in the Journal of the Optical Society of America A (you can find abstracts for these articles here, and here).
  • Connor O’Rear ’14 was named the Distinguished Senior in Psychology, and Nathan Bryant ’14 received the Capstone award.
  • Andy Walsh ’14 and minor Ryan Cloyd ’14 delivered an excellent pair of speeches at Commencement.
  • Profs. Gunther, Aubele-Futch and Schmitzer-Torbert brought the 5th annual mGluRs undergraduate research conference to Wabash in the fall.
  • The Psychology Department is still housed in Baxter Hall, but if you are looking for us this summer, you’ll have to drop by Hays Hall. While the second and third floors of Baxter are being renovated this summer, we have temporarily moved into two classrooms in Hays Hall, one for office space and one for Dr. Gunther’s lab (in which Colin Downey ’15 will be working as the Parks summer research intern).

4/30 results

Posted on by

Wabash College’s first Day of Giving in April was a great success, raising over $460,000 in a single day. As part of the Day of Giving, the Psychology Department created an “Affinity Challenge” to raise money to support student research by Wabash students (through the Special Psychology Fund).

We created the Special Psychology Fund last year, to help us support a wide variety of student research activities. Currently, the Psychology Department has one endowed fund, which supports a student internship each summer (the Parks Research Internship, which honors Professor Eldon Parks). But, we do not have other endowed funds to support student research (outside of our annual departmental budget).

On the Day of Giving, our Affinity Challenge did not start until the afternoon, but even so we received 17 donations, for a total of more than $400. Next to the total for the day (>400k), this would seem to be a modest amount! But, it is important to note that before 4/30, only one person (a Psychology faculty member) had made a donation to the Special Psychology Fund, so this was a dramatic improvement! And, we were impressed with the diversity of donors, who included alumni, current students, faculty (in Psychology and other departments) and friends of the College.

Brad Wise ’14 presenting his senior capstone work at the Psychology Research Symposium

With the funds that we have received so far, we will be able to send a recent Wabash graduate (Brad Wise, ’14) to attend a national research conference in D.C this fall, to present on work that he did for his senior capstone research project with Dr. Aubele-Futch.

Over the next few years, we are hoping to grow the contributions to the Special Psychology Fund, to continue to support our research with Wabash students, and to provide them with more opportunities to conduct and present excellent work.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the College, whether on 4/30 or any time. We appreciate your support for the work that we do with Wabash students. If you are considering making a donation to Wabash, you can earmark part of your gift for our psychology students by directing your donation to the Special Psychology Fund.

 

Psychology Awards 2014

Posted on by

Connor O’Rear ’14 presents his senior capstone research project at the 2014 Psychology Research Symposium

Each year, the Psychology Department gives out two awards, the Distinguished Senior in Psychology, and the Capstone Award. The Distinguished Senior in Psychology Award is given each year to the senior major who best represents the department’s ideal for outstanding scholarship, research and service, while the Senior Capstone Award is given each year to the senior major who completes the top senior capstone research project. The Capstone Award considers the scope of the senior capstone, the initiative of the major in completing it, and the public presentations that the senior makes (including our Psychology Research Symposium poster session).

At Awards Chapel last week, Connor O’Rear ’14 was announced to be the 28th Distinguished Senior in Psychology. Connor has excelled at Wabash, receiving Distinction on his Senior Comprehensive exams, and he was also named a Mackintosh Fellow at Awards Chapel. Connor came to Wabash from South Bend, and in his time at Wabash he has been very active in research (completing two summer internships, one with Dr. Schmitzer-Torbert and one with Dr. Horton) as well as three semesters of research with Dr. Horton outside of class. For his capstone project, Connor worked with Dr. Olfoson, in a study of the development of theory of mind in children. Outside of psychology, Connor also completed an area of concentration in Asian Studies and has been involved in the Chinese Club and Psi Chi and worked as a tutor at the writing center.

After Wabash, Connor will begin his PhD studies in Psychology at Notre Dame, where he will be continuing his focus on developmental psychology, in research on children’s understanding of math with Dr. Nicole McNeil (whose lab he volunteered in while still in high school).

Nathan Bryant ’14 receives the Capstone Award at the Psychology Research Symposium Keynote address.

This year, Nathan Bryant received the 2014 Capstone Award, for his project: The Effects of the Serotonin Agonist Sumatriptan on Aggression in a Neutral Cage in Adult Male Rats. Nathan is from Indianapolis and attended Ben Davis High School. He is a Senior DeMolay, and Freemason. At Wabash, Nathan served as a student senator, IFC representative, and vice-president of the Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Working with Dr. Aubele-Futch, Nathan found that infusions of sumatriptan, a serotonin agonist, into the nucleus accumbens in rats significantly increased aggressive behavior in male rats. A copy of Nathan’s poster, presented at the Psychology Research Symposium, is posted below.

Nathan Bryant’s poster summarizing his capstone research project.

Fall Newsletter – 2013

Posted on by

It has been awhile since the Psychology Department last sent out a newsletter, but this year seemed like a great time to start again!  Alums should expect to receive a copy by mail soon, and a PDF of the newsletter is available now!

Psychology Newsletter Fall 2013

We’re very thankful to Max Gallivan ’16, who put the newsletter together, and has spent many hours folding and preparing the paper mailing!