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Department Purpose Statement

We conscientiously facilitate student success.  Student success is the key to everything we do at Salt Lake Community College, in the Psychology Department, what we focus on every day.  Student success is defined by each individual student.  For some, the opportunity to attend college defines their success.  For others it means the completion of degrees or programs.   For others it means the successful transfer to other colleges or universities.  For some it means employment.  And for still others, it means prestige, status, or to develop a skill.  Student success is defined by the student rather than the individual professor, Psychology Department, or the College.  We conscientiously facilitate student success by accomplishing the following:
  1. We are education professionals.  We are psychology teaching professionals, and among the most capable teachers of psychology in the United States.  We take pride in the work we do.
  2. We are an educational team:  We work to help each other (including adjunct faculty) become more knowledgeable and proficient in order to facilitate even greater student success.  We work efficiently as a part of bigger College team that facilitates student success.
  3. We actively update, organize, design, and build psychology course curriculum.  We take cutting edge psychological research, analyze it, and integrate it into our current teaching.  We encourage and reward teaching innovation as we share knowledge and  ideas to help us carefully re-design new course curriculum.
  4. We encourage and reward innovation in our courses.  We actively strive to make our courses, processes, and procedures better through the thought, ideas, and creativity of every faculty member.
  5. We engage and connect with our students.  We know the names of each of our students, and show respect for them.  We effectively communicate with them, and encourage their questions.  We positively affect their educational experience and lives.
  6. We embrace and celebrate diversity.  We respect and enjoy human difference, and see it as an opportunity for learning, understanding, and growth within the College and community.
  7. We carefully assess the success of our students.  We employ a variety of tested and proven assessment methods to measure (with validity and reliability) the success of our students in each of the courses we teach.
  8. We make competent informed decisions.  We endorse meaningful decision making based on Departmental expertise and experience coupled with comprehensive data.  We make competent decisions regarding quality education, what is being taught, and what will be taught in the future.
  9. We have clarity regarding our educational role.  We are clear on what competent teaching requires, and are continually evaluating our personal progress in becoming better professors.