CLAS departments have new names

The Department of Global, International and Area Studies and the Department of Psychology, housed in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, received approval to become the Department of Global Studies and the Department of Psychological Science, beginning with the spring 2017 semester.

Dale Smith, professor and chair of the Global Studies Department, noted that since its founding in 2009, the department had coalesced around thematic concentrations – peace and conflict, development and sustainability and genocide and human rights – and had moved away from the “area” or regional focus of the past.

“The time was right to rebrand the department to better match the department’s curriculum and research,” said Smith, who joined the University this past July. “This was at a time when the relations we studied truly were inter-nation relations because nations were, for the most part, the sole actors in global affairs. Today, in addition to nations, there are a host of different actors. Individuals, non-governmental groups, multinational corporations and international organizations all compete for space on the global stage. In the 21st century, ‘global’ is the appropriate modifier for interdisciplinary departments like ours.”

Fary Cachelin, professor and chair of the Department of Psychological Science, said, “The brand ‘psychological science’ reflects the training of our students, signals the recognized place of psychology among the STEM disciplines, facilitates interdisciplinary collaborations and represents the expertise of our faculty in the cognitive, health and organizational sciences. Our name change is part of a broader national movement in the field to promote the recognition of psychology as a science.”