National honor society provides opportunities for psychology honors students

Emporia State is home to one of the many chapters of Psi Chi, a national honor society within the field of psychology and award winning student organization.

“Psychology is an interesting and ever-changing field,” said John Meara, first year graduate student in experimental psychology with a focus in cognitive thinking and president of Psi Chi. “The study of psychology is to find out why people behave the way that they do. That’s a basic human question.”

There are over 1,000 chapters nationwide. Just two years ago the Emporia State chapter won the national chapter award and was one of the few model chapters last year. They won these awards by sending several members to the American Psychology Associations national conference. They also participated in a great deal of community service.

“The goal for the organization is to be able to help students traveling to the national Psi Chi convention - that’s why they do fundraising,” said Ken Weaver, advisor for the Psi Chi club and head of the psychology department at ESU. “Emporia State is nationally known for the amount of students they take to the national convention. We had 15 students go to the national convention in San Francisco last year and we have 19 that are signed up to go to Boston this upcoming August.”

According to the ESU Web site, club membership is open to men and women who make the study of psychology one of their main interests. The minimum GPA requirement is a 3.0 and they must have completed 9 hours of psychology courses.

“We have membership requirements that individuals must meet,” Weaver said. “However, meetings and activities are open to everyone. Our meetings are generally set up like business meetings but sometimes we have panels or invited speakers. The minutes of our meetings are posted on our Web site and we have executive committee meetings once a month as well.”

The organization has a regular meeting once a month, generally toward the end of the month. Their last meeting was Feb. 26 and their next meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. on March 25 in Visser Hall 312, where Garin Higgins, ESU head football coach, will speak about the instrumental nature of psychology in sports.

“Psychology is never the same and that’s one thing I enjoy about it,” said Tyler Soeken, first year graduate student. “You never see the same person twice when you are doing clinical work.”

Weaver said that he knows that some individuals still believe that psychology only involves an individual lying down on a couch while telling their problems. However, this is only a very small area of psychology. There is industrial, clinical and experimental psychology, as well as many other areas that deal with everyday life.

“We want freshman and transfer students to join psychology club first and if they decide psychology is something they really want to commit to.” Weaver said. “If so, then by joining psychology club that’s already a contact into Psi Chi.”