Flyer

Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Joe Peterson

Lewis University has 600 undergraduate and graduate psychology students. With such a popular program, the department started an annual student conference last year to cater to this large population.

This time, the conference, which was held on April 20 in the Harold E. White Aviation Center, offered seminars for undergraduate and presentations by graduate level psychology students. This year's conference attracted 121 undergraduate and 111 graduate students.

New this year, Lewis graduate students could sign up to present on various topics. Twenty-nine individuals or groups talked on a variety of topics at the conference, such as Art Therapy and the Effects of Yoga in Children with ADHD. Lewis offers two psychology-related graduate degrees: counseling psychology and school counseling and guidance.

With such a large department, the conference acts as a way to educate students on fundamental questions they may all be having and for faculty to better know their students. "We thought this could be a good way to stay connected to interested [students]," said Dr. Katherine Helm, Director of Graduate Programs in Psychology and Associate Professor of Psychology, as well as the point person for the committee. "[We want to] make sure the widest number of us (faculty), get to meet most students."

The conference was not just for psychology students, though. It was for anyone interested in the field, according to Helm. Therefore, the seminars were interactive and provided students with answers to the basic questions they might be having in regards to the field.

Why is psychology such a popular program?

"It's inherently interesting," Helm said. "We always want to know why we do what we do."

Helm predicted that the undergraduate seminars on forensic psychology, careers in psychology, graduate school and clinical and counseling psychology would be the most popular among students.

A counseling graduate student at Lewis, Cristina Rodriguez, came to the conference to particularly hear the graduate student and career seminars, since she just started as a graduate student and wanted to make sure there wasn't anything she forgot.

Seniors, Marina Tadros and Ghadeer Salameh, planned to attend the graduate school, the careers in psychology and the child/adolescent psychology seminars, since both are hoping to go onto graduate school with a child/adolescent concentration.

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