What do you hope students take away from your class?
Depression and anxiety are steadily on the rise among today’s college students—likely due to social media—and sloppy, emotion-based thinking abounds, especially in the academy these days. Psychology can mollify this mental health crisis in its role as a behavioral science—and we should be proud of that fact and the achievements of our discipline over the past century, despite our shortcomings and blind spots. The bottom line is that I want students to learn how to think better to lead a happier and more fulfilling life.
Name a fun fact about your teaching style or classroom approach.
Like psychology, teaching is also a science, and there is a solid evidence base for the effectiveness of active learning, especially in science classes. So, I like to engage my students as much as possible, whether having them counsel me (and each other) live in class, building brains out of Play-Doh, working clinical cases collaboratively, or participating in a forensic psychology class trial as an expert witness or attorney.
What is your favorite class or lesson to teach?
My favorite class to teach is counseling skills. We have a multicultural and diverse student body at Fort Lewis College, with much emphasis on what divides us, and yet, in this class, we all come to learn a powerful message: That no matter our backgrounds, we all suffer from the same fundamental existential issues fueled by the nagging doubt that we are not good enough.
What do you enjoy most about teaching?
Building relationships with my students is the most satisfying part of my job. Classes like counseling skills help me get to know students more deeply, and I have also been able to experience students outside the classroom because I get to teach travel classes—like the psychology of happiness in Costa Rica and field school in clinical and forensic psychology in the Denver area each summer. Next May, I will be officiating at my third wedding involving former students of mine, and I went for a hike this summer in Denver with a student from 2007, who just turned 40 years old.
Is there a teacher or colleague who especially inspired you?
My Fort Lewis College (FLC) psychology department colleagues have indelibly shaped and improved how I teach. Exchanging teaching ideas with FLC psych professors like Sharon Sears, Megan Wrona, or Alex Borgella—all of whom have different styles, but equal effectiveness with their students—has been an ongoing source of stimulation for me. My biggest inspiration, though, has been Dick Gorman, who taught at several schools before ending his long career in his 80s at Central New Mexico Community College when he died in 2010. Dick influenced me strongly with his passion and unwavering enthusiasm for psychology and teaching; he founded the Mountain States Teaching of Psychology Conference (MountainToP) to showcase active learning, which is where we met at its inaugural run in Albuquerque in the mid-aughts. Dick was the inspiration behind my Play-Doh brain activity with his workshop entitled, “Lecture-Free Lectures for Introductory Psychology Classes.” Fort Lewis College held a MountainToP conference in Durango, Colorado, in 2011 in Dick’s loving memory. I published an interview with Dick in STP's flagship journal, Teaching of Psychology (ToP)opens in new window, in 2007.
What is the most memorable moment in your teaching career?
Thanks to my innovative psychology department, I get to teach a class each spring entitled senior research experience in psychology. In my section of that class, my students learn about and conduct independent scientific research in terror management theory (TMT), which provides a comprehensive explanation for human motivation and behavior, suggesting that the awareness of mortality is a core driving force behind human action. This past year, two of my senior students produced a fascinating study revealing that Indigenous participants may defend against the threat of their mortality differently than whites. White participants sentenced an Indigenous burglar to almost a year longer following death reminders than they did in the control group, t(29) = 0.826, p = .005. Conversely, Indigenous participants did not sentence the white (or Indigenous) burglar to any additional time whether they were primed with death or not, t(30) = 0.692, p = .500. My most memorable teaching moment transpired when these students presented their research to all three founders of TMT at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association (RMPA) convention in Denver in April 2024. At the symposium, the student researchers speculated, in part based on their own experience as Indigenous people, that Indigenous participants may take a distinct—and previously understudied—approach to managing their existential anxiety. This moment represents the culmination of what I am trying to accomplish as a professor: Conveying that psychological science and its associated methodology possess deep and unending value, and students can work within this broad paradigm to illuminate important cultural and other differences in how human beings function.
What advice would you give to newer and/or veteran psychology teachers?
Teaching is not merely a random collection of ideas or feelings—instead, it is an evidence-based practice where you can improve with dedicated practice, feedback, and a growth mindset. Networking with colleagues and regularly attending teaching conferences is vital to hone your skills. Two of the best pieces of advice I ever received about teaching were from the same source: Barry Perlmanopens in new window, now retired from the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. Barry told me once that “the enemy of good teaching is content,” which means that you reduce the quality of your teaching if you insist on covering everything (especially in an introductory course); it is more profitable, instead, to spend time delving into the core material patiently without rushing. Second, Barry advised me to “steal whatever you can” at teaching conferences, by which he meant that you should adapt other people’s excellent active learning ideas for use in your classroom (like Dick’s Play-Doh brain, which he initially did using clay).
What does it mean to you to receive the STP 2024 Robert S. Daniel Teaching Excellence Award?
It is a profound honor to receive this recognition from my psychology professor colleagues at STP. When I started teaching over two decades ago, I was surprised and utterly delighted to learn that an entire organization was dedicated to teaching psychology. I have been an STP member ever since, which has helped me meet and learn from mentors like Dick Gorman, Barry Perlman, Bill Buskist, and Doug Bernstein. What I have learned more than anything is this: Nothing is a solitary task and anything you want to be good at requires listening to and learning from many other people.
