Recommendation from the Committee on Undergraduate Studies (Steven Hastings, Chair) with the concurrence of the Coordinating  Committee on Education (Fred Hofstetter, Chair) and the Executive Committee (Deni Galileo, Chair) for the request to change the name of the Department of Psychology to the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

 

Whereas,         the Department is in the Natural Sciences portfolio of the College of Arts and Sciences, historically has been a laboratory-based science focused on psychological and physiological processes, and recently has added a strong neuroscience component, and

 

Whereas,         most of the Department’s tenure-track faculty include physiological measures or neuroscience aspects in their research programs, including an explicit neuroscience focus of the last six tenure-track hires, and

 

Whereas,         the Department has plans to strengthen its neuroscience components, including expanding its popular undergraduate neuroscience major, and collaborating with others in the University in constructing an imaging facility to advance brain research, and

 

Whereas,         the Department wishes to communicate accurately to undergraduate students and the community its strong focus on the rigorous scientific end of the discipline and on the neural and physiological processes underlying psychological phenomena, be it therefore

 

Resolved,        that the Faculty Senate recommends that the name of the Department of Psychology be changed to the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.