Some personal information about me.

These questions were developed by the members of the California University of Pennsylvania Psychology Club; I just provided the answers.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Bryn Mawr, PA and moved to Harrisburg, PA when I was seven years old.  For the past 24 years I have lived in Pittsburgh, Pa.

 

Where did you go to school?

I got my Bachelor's degree in English from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1963.  I got my Masters Degree and Doctorate from Bowling Green State University in 1978.

 

After graduating from college I went to the Navy Officer's Candidate school and spent the next ten years as a supply officer.  After my discharge I went to graduate school, and after I got my Ph.D. Since then, I have held the following jobs.

• Development Dimensions International.

  • DDI is a consulting firm in Pittsburgh, PA that specializes in developing state-of-the-art personnel selection and training programs.   I specialized in developing assessment centers for a variety of clients.

• Psychological Consultants to Industry

  • PCI is a smaller consulting firm that specialized in supervisory, management, and executive assessment.

• Partners In Change

  • PIC is a small consulting firm that specializes in industrial training system design and evaluation.

• California University of Pennsylvania

  • I was hired at California University of Pennsylvania in 1991.

 

Actually there are two reasons.  When the U.S. Navy and I decided to part company, I went to a career counselor in Philadelphia.  He suggested that I had the interests and ability to become a Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Computer Programmer, or Librarian.  I chose industrial psychology even though at the time I was not sure what an industrial psychologist was.

My second reason was the fact that my Mother returned to graduate school when she was 58 and got her Ph.D. in Anthropology when she was 62.  I decided that if my Mom could do this, I could do it.

 

What is the one thing you like most about psychology?

The thing I like the most is the opportunity to teach, do research, and consult with industrial clients.  Of these three, I like teaching the best.  I especially like the challenge of teaching psychological statistics.   Most students think that this course is going to be some sort of intellectual root canal.  I think I make the course relatively painless.

 

Industrial Psychology.

 

Right now, I am especially interested in applied personality assessment.  I have been doing research work in this area since 1991.

 

What is your teaching style?

I guess that most students would say that I am pretty laid back.  While I try to adjust my approach to each class, I seem to emphasize lecture the most.  I like to encourage small group discussions whenever I can, and I try to bring my classes alive by using as many real life examples as I can.  I also try to make class fun, but this is hard to do when I teach Statistics.

 

How do you evaluate students' performance?

For most classes I have frequent short quizzes.  In a typical semester I may have 8 to 12 quizzes.   Generally, I drop the lowest quiz score if there are more than six quizzes in a semester.  Depending on the class, these quizzes may account for between 40% and 75% of the overall grade.  The rest of the scores come from homework, and papers.   I don't believe in extra credit assignments.

 

How much reading do you require in your classes?

This depends on the class.  For introductory classes, where students are being exposed to the topic for the first time, I have relatively little reading, perhaps a text chapter a week.   For advanced and graduate-level classes my expectations are much higher.

 

How many papers do you require?

I have at least one paper for each class I teach except for statistics.  To keep statistics students from being disappointed, I give them three take-home tests.

 

Chocolate,  I believe that chocolate is a basic and little understood food group.

 

If you could live a year in any place in the world with all expenses paid, where would you go?

This is a hard question to answer.   It would be a choice between Paris and Florence.  In either case, I would spend a considerable amount of time traveling.

 

If you could wake up tomorrow to learn that the major newspaper headlines were  about you, what would you want them to say?

There are many things...I guess one of the headlines would be: College Professor  Wins Country's Largest Lottery.   In the sports section I would like to see, Steelers Draft College Professor.   In the science section I would like to see, Industrial Psychologist Discovers the Gene for Intolerance and How to Control It.

 

If you could have lunch with any psychologist, living or dead, whom would you choose and why?

Given that I could also speak German, I would choose Freud.  I don't understand Freud well and I would like to discuss his ideas, especially in light of what we know today about human behavior and cognition.