Psychology Major – B.A. Degree

2024-2025 Undergraduate Program Change

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General Catalog Information
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  • **Read before you begin**

    Select Program for New Majors and Minors below as the Type of Proposal before building curriculum data.

    Program include Majors, Minors, Certificates, Micro-Credentials

    Shared Core includes cores of courses that can be built and maintained once but used in multiple programs.

  • Type of Proposal*

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  • Department*
  • School/College Curriculum Committee
    Departments in CLAS or SCMA can ignore this question. This question only needs to be answered if your proposal is in the SoE or SoB.
  • Program Title*
    Psychology Major – B.A. Degree
    Psychology Major – B.A. Degree
  • Program Type*
  • Degree Type*
  • Program Description*

    Psychology—the scientific study of human and animal behavior and how such knowledge can be applied—is useful in many contexts, including health care, education, business, industry, sports and law. SUNY Oswego’s Psychology Department offers a superior program taught in an exciting atmosphere.

    The Department of Psychology offers both a major BA and a minor in psychology. In both programs, students explore psychological science and behavior from the viewpoint of objective research.  Through the application of scientific reasoning and methodology to the study of complex psychological subject matter, our majors acquire the analytical and critical thinking skills valued in the contemporary career marketplace. The rigorous curriculum also provides graduates with the strong, broad background in the field required for admission to graduate programs in psychology or related fields.

    The Psychology Department also offers a multidisciplinary BA/MBA program jointly with the School of Business. The program is designed to prepare Oswego psychology graduates for careers in business. At the conclusion of the program students receive a BA in Psychology, a minor in Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration.

    The Psychology/Human Computer Interaction (HCI) program is another multidisciplinary program offered jointly by the Department of Psychology and the HCI Program that is designed to allow students who are interested in pursuing an advanced degree in HCI to complete both degrees in a shortened time frame. Students receive a BA in Psychology and a MA in Human Computer Interaction upon successful completion of the program.

    All students enrolled in Psychology Department major programs are encouraged to engage in hands-on work in their area of interest. Students may elect to work on research projects with individual faculty or to pursue advanced research or independent study of their own. The department has excellent resources to support research in comparative and physiological psychology, evolutionary psychology, perceptual processes, human and animal learning, social psychology, experimental psychology and statistics, human factors, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, gender and sexuality, psychology and law, health psychology and multicultural psychology.

    Several faculty have federally funded and unfunded research projects that students can become involved with including the areas of infant perception, cardiovascular reactivity, and other areas of ongoing investigation.

    The Department of Psychology is very proud to be home to an active chapter of Psi Chi, the national honors society in Psychology, as well as an active Psychology Club that is open to all interested students.

    Because of very heavy student interest in the programs offered by the Department of Psychology, admission of first-year students and both internal and external transfer students may be restricted. Consult the Admissions Office (315-312-2250) or the Psychology Department Office (315-312-4013) for current admissions requirements.

    The Department of Psychology cosponsors the following programs. The department has a representative-advisor to consult with those interested in the Cognitive Science program and to advise psychology majors who wish to build an elective sequence in this area.

    Cognitive Science Major – B.A. Degree
    Cognitive Science Major – B.S. Degree 
    Linguistics Major – B.A. Degree
    Philosophy-Psychology Joint Major – B.A. Degree      

    The Graduate Advanced Certificate Program - Interdisciplinary Trauma Studies - is cosponsored by the Psychology Department.

    Enter the description for this program as it should appear in the catalog. (Please submit the curriculum/course listing as a file attachment. This section is for a description of the program for the college catalog).
  • Justification for the Proposal*

    Proposal to Require Additional Breadth Courses

    Currently, students are only required to take either Abnormal or Social Psychology, a decision largely driven by staffing limitations that existed over ten years ago. Abnormal and Social Psychology are both core areas of training in Psychology. It is important that students have training in both major content areas for a well-rounded psychology degree. Both courses are already required prerequisites for multiple 400-level depth courses. These are also two of the highest student demand areas of our field, and most students take both already. This proposal would add 3 credits to the major, bringing us closer to other programs both locally and at other institutions (discounting cognates and related coursework).

    This change would have minimal impact on course offerings or scheduling, while giving all of our defined Breadth areas equal standing.

    The department has voted to approve this change over a year ago but held off on implementing it in order to combine it with other changes and minimize administrative work related to such a change. Our assessment of this change previously suggests that the majority of our students complete this requirement already, so it is not likely to impact staffing needs.

    Proposal to Replace Capstone with Additional Depth Course

    The Capstone course is a legacy of prior administrative constraints, and implementation of a version consistent with our departmental goals has caused significant difficulties in terms of development, staffing, student scheduling, as well as impacts on other parts of the curriculum. Depth courses provide students with focused learning experiences within faculty specializations, and increasing the diversity of these offerings further leverages our diverse expertise to the benefit of students. In addition, Depth courses generally accomplish the desired learning outcomes of the capstone courses, as students typically equal or exceed the amount of research-based writing required by the Capstone.

    Replacing the Capstone with Depth courses substantially increases scheduling flexibility for both the department and our students. Existing Capstone research/internship experiences will become a Depth option instead of a requirement. More depth courses would be offered each semester, providing students with more choices, and reducing the number of students taking a specific depth option because it was the only one available.

    This change can be implemented by removing the capstone requirement category and adding the Capstone research/internship experiences to Depth courses. The required 6 credits from Depth courses will be increased to 9 credits. No additional staffing would be required, as Capstone courses are structurally similar to Depth courses in terms of caps and faculty requirements. The writing plan will need to be revised to account for this change but given the relative similarity of the Depth and Capstone components, this should be relatively straightforward.

  • Follow these steps to propose courses to the new program curriculum:

    Step 1

    There are two options for adding courses: "Add Course" and "Import Course." 

    For courses already in the catalog, click on "Import Course" and find the courses needed. 

    For new classes going through a Curriculog Approval Process click on "Add Course"-- a box will open asking you for the Prefix, Course Number and Course Title.

    Step 2

    Click on "View Curriculum Schema" then select “Add Core”. When the New Core appears, expand the Core and enter the Core Title. Next, click on “Add Courses” to access the list of courses from step 1. Then select the courses you wish to add.  

    For removing courses click on the Delete and proceed.

  • Proposed Program Curriculum*
  • Please Attach:
    Substantive changes to the curriculum require re-registration of the program. Please consult the Associate Provost for guidance.

  •  

  • System Administrators Only
  • Acalog Program OID
    8308
    8308
  • Acalog Status
  • School/College

  • User Tracking

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