Psi Chi establishes a sense of community among psychologists who can work toward a common goal.
Psi Chi is an international honors society that only accepts students with a major or minor in psychology and a 3.0 gpa in their psychology classes. It’s an international honors society and the UCA chapter has been on campus since 1969.
In essence, the whole of the RSO is focused on psychology.
“It’s specifically for people who want to do things in the psychology field and so that’s why they want you to be psychology minded and psychology based to get something out of it,” expected Psi Chi president junior Hailey Thomas said.
Because it’s geared toward psychology students, members are able to form a sort of community between the students and the teachers within the psychology department.
“Psi Chi isn’t just about getting the members involved in psychology but it’s also about getting the advisers and the different professors involved from the psychology department so that the students are able to interact with the professors and get to know them better,” junior Hailey Thomas said.
Although he originally had doubts when he was assigned Psi Chi club advisor in 2007, Associate Professor of Psychology Shawn Charlton said, “I’m glad that I did as working with Psi Chi and the members of our chapter has become one of my favorite parts of my job here at UCA.
Psi Chi sponsor and the RSO participates in meetings at least once or twice a month which include socials, research presentations, virtual colloquiums – in which members connect via Skype with psychologists from around the United States– and service projects.
“We’ll have a lot of speakers come and talk about the different areas of psychology to help people become more knowledgeable about the different aspects of psychology so that maybe they’ll get to see more areas that we don’t have access to directly here at UCA,” Thomas said.
The club holds events that apply psychological concepts to real-world issues. Some of the upcoming events include a discussion about the brain and behavior for a Conway middle school and a Chipotle fundraiser from 4-9 p.m. on March 14 where proceeds support the Central Arkansas Women’s Shelter.
Image courtesy of pages.uoregon.edu
