Welcome

July 2008

Dear Psychology Student,

We have an exciting School of Psychology Fall Research Session 2008, November 11-15, planned and look forward to seeing you in Baltimore. The Session will be staffed by Associate Deans (Joe Bush and Kjell Rudestam), Consulting Faculty (Katherine Randazzo, Michele Harway, and Rae Newton), and Santa Barbara Staff (Shelley Hughes, Debbie Lemke, and Michael Padden-Rubin). I am particularly pleased to announce that our newest HotLab 07 Presenting and Publishing will be presented for the second time at this Session. We will also have an excellent guest presentation by Fielding student and NIMH staff member Margaret Feerick on NIMH funding for student research in psychology.

The Psychology seminars are organized into three tracks: beginning, intermediate, and advanced. No one is “too young” or “too old” in Fielding years to benefit from the Research Session. If this is your first Research Session, or if you do not yet have a Concept Paper, you should probably consider yourself a beginner. If you are beginning to develop a dissertation proposal, consider yourself intermediate. And if you are beyond that point, you are advanced. The beginning track will introduce you to ways to develop your ideas into a research project and give you some direct experience with research. Intermediate students can take HOTLabs to earn Research Practicum credit (so can beginning students who take the Research Intensive HOTLab), work on their proposal ideas in groups, and participate in a variety of other seminars. Advanced students can get help completing their proposals or on analyzing their data and writing up the findings, as well as attending other seminars of interest.

Please note that many seminars are offered in multiple parts. Participation in these seminars requires attendance at all of the component parts. Research Development Groups are also in some cases offered over multiple sections. These, however, are independent. You are free to enroll in as many or as few of their component sections as you wish. You should register for the Research Development Group being led by your Associate Dean, if possible. However, if your Associate Dean is not present, you are free to register for any Research Development Group.

We have reserved a certain number of hotel sleeping rooms based on attendance from our last Research Session. Once these rooms have been taken, reservations are not guaranteed, so please make your reservations early.

We look forward to a very exciting Session. We hope you will be able to join us in Baltimore.

Best regards,

Joseph P. Bush, PhD
Associate Dean for Research
School of Psychology
Fielding Graduate University