Our Vision Statement
Our vision is to identify creative and empirically-supported strategies to continually encourage and promote quality undergraduate education in psychology, with a focus on enhancing ongoing development of meaningful faculty-student engagement in the classroom, scholarship, and applied experiences. This is accomplished in an environment that encourages faculty development, scholarly activity, and contribution to the field of psychological science.
The Initial Years
- 1967 The department was established in September with Dr. Irene M. Hulicka as chair, although a limited number of Psychology courses had been taught previously by the Elementary Education Department
- 1967-68 Approximately 600 students enrolled in Introductory Psychology and approximately 60 students enrolled in the three sophomore level courses (Learning, Perception and Statistics) which were offered. Approximately 15 students had expressed an interest in majoring in Psychology
- In the beginning, the department was housed in Perry Hall and there were four faculty members: Baker, Field, Hulicka, and Morganti.
- It was noted that the library support for this new major was “fairly good” and that the library was “expending large sums to provide adequate support”
- Facilities for the psychology major were described as “woefully inadequate” and the total budget for laboratory equipment was $500. However, the future looked bright as the department would soon be moving into the new Social Science Classroom Building and laboratory equipment had been requested.
- 1968-69 Rapid expansion of the course offerings was planned (Personality, Social, Abnormal, Motivation, and Experimental Psychology).
- 1973 Department moved into what was called the New Classroom Building, where it has remained ever since
Initial Goals for the Major
These goals continue to define the department.
- “To serve the college by offering courses in psychology which support programs in other departments and divisions and at the same time to build a strong liberal arts psychology major”.
- Having an emphasis upon “behavioral theories, empirical laws and principles and the methodology for investigating behavior rather than on pre-professional training of an applied nature”.
- “To prepare students to function efficiently in graduate programs in psychology.”
- “To insure that all students who qualify as psychology majors have mastered a reasonable amount of core material pertaining to psychological theory and research.”
- “To allow for maximum flexibility of course choice by students…”
- “To allow for maximum flexibility in the development of the psychology program.”
Many Faculty have found the Psychology Department to fit their vision of what an Undergraduate Department Should Be
Faculty Who have Retired from the Psychology Department
1967 Dr. Irene Hulicka, Retired 1991
1968 Dr. Jack Morganti, Retired 1999
1969 Dr. Jerry Cataldo, Retired 2012
1970 Dr. Bradley Lown, Retired 2003
1972 Dr. Virginia Wyly, Retired 1999
1976 Dr. Gary Heiman, Retired 2010
Current Faculty of the Psychology Department
1977 Dr. Howard Reid
1978 Dr. Jurgis Karuza
1982 Dr. Karen O’Quin
1992 Dr. Robert Delprino
1995 Dr. Michael Zborowski
1996 Dr. Pamela Schuetze
1997 Dr. Michael MacLean
1997 Dr. Jill Norvilitis
2000 Dr. Dwight Hennessy
2001 Dr. Jean DiPirro
2008 Dr. Stephani Foraker
2016 Dr. Naomi McKay
2018 Dr. Kimberly Kamper-DeMarco
Over the years, there has been an Expansion of the Department’s Degree Offerings:
- BS program
- Child Advocacy Certificate Program
- Gerontology Minor
- Minor in Psychology
There is a Continued Focus Upon Student Organizations and Research:
- 1994 Society for Human Resource Management
- 2009 Department Annual Creativity Celebration
- 2010 Psychology Students Interested in Community Outreach
- 2017 Hulicka Scholars Program
Individualized Student Learning Experiences
We have responded programmatically to the desire of many students for enriched academic encounters and have strongly encouraged formal individualized experience options, such as independent studies, and especially the honor thesis. This has led to numerous conference publications, posters, grants, and peer reviewed publications among our majors. We take great pride in the scientific accomplishments of our majors and do everything we can to support such efforts. What makes many of these so impressive is that they are competitive and limited honors from across the campus. For example, the Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowships are awarded to approximately 15-20 students each year campus-wide (and distributed evenly across schools) yet we routinely have multiple award winners.
Substantial Evidence of Undergraduate Student Success:
Our students have been awarded a remarkable number of BSC and SUNY-wide awards.
Since 2002, the following students have received a Chancellor’s Award for Undergraduate Student Excellence:
Paulette Wydro (2002)
Victoriya Magid (2003)
Andrew Verity (2004)
Francisco Lopez (2005)
Sarah Wilson (2005)
Jessica Bryant (2006)
Nicole Maiorana (2006)
Nija Marshall (2006)
Kate Norwalk (2007)
Natale Sciolino (2008)
Morgan Morningstar (2012)
Kira Bruce (2013)
Leanna Kalinowski (2016)
Sasa Vann (2016)
Carly Pershyn (2017)
Lydia Sigurdson (2017)
Samantha Stanford (2018)
Nicholas Gray (2019)
Students awarded a President’s Medal for Undergraduate Excellence since 2002:
Victoriya Magid (2003)
Francisco Lopez (2005)
Nicole Maiorana (2006)
Natale Sciolino (2008)
Sasa Vann (2016)
Vanessa Schieble (2020)
Our majors listed in Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges since 2013 (Program Discontinued after 2018):
Linda Banfield (2014)
Tessa Bechtold (2014)
Veronica Darlow (2015)
Shakila Randall (2015)
Leanna Kalinowski (2016)
Sasa Vann (2016)
Samuel Alfonso (2017)
Michael Brunetto (2017)
Carly Pershyn (2018)
Lydia Sigurdson (2018)
Other recent student awards of note:
Shannon Coyne: Buffalo State College Outstanding Service-Learning Student (2016)
Shannon Coyne: Buffalo State Undergraduate Intern of the Year (2017)
Michael Brunetto: Buffalo State Volunteer of the Year (2017)
Nicholas Michalski: American Psychology-Law Society Undergraduate Paper Competition Winner (2018)
Addie Longmire: Mamie Phipps Clark Diversity Research Award (2019)
