Tag Archives: Student Highlight

Honors Defense, Research, Student Highlight, Undergraduate News

Honors Defense: Devin Brown

Huge congratulations to senior Devin Brown who successfully defended her honors project on Tuesday April 11th!

Devin Brown ’23 poses with her Honors in Psychology t-shirt after a successful defense

Devin’s project was titled The Pen is Mightier than the Brain: the Cognitive and Social Psychology Behind the Handwriting Legibility Effect. During the defense, Devin’s project advisor Dr. Carter was joined by committee members Dr. Kennedy-Metz and Dr. Brenzovich.

Below is the abstract from Devin’s paper:

“The handwriting legibility effect suggests that the quality of handwriting can affect the grades that are assigned to student papers. There are both cognitive and personality based theories that give a basis for why this occurs, but there is a lack of cohesive research testing subcomponents of these theories. This research is a controlled experiment designed to fill this gap in the current literature.  To understand how handwriting quality contributes to evaluator perception of author competency, warmth, and similarity, these personality components were considered. For cognitive components, effort to read the essay, truthfulness of the answer, and complexity of the argument were studied. All of these were affected by the quality of handwriting the participants were exposed to except complexity. This research can be used in future studies to find and apply practical solutions to bring more equality in classroom settings for students that may have worse handwriting for a number of reasons. “

Congratulations, Devin!

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PBK

Phi Beta Kappa News: Elected Psychology Students

Congratulations to all Roanoke College students who have been elected into Phi Beta Kappa. PBK is the oldest honors society in the country and recognizes stellar students in the liberal arts and sciences who are championed in free thought. PBK is America’s most prestigious honors society, and as such, serves as the forefront of recognition in liberal arts education. The Psychology Department would like to say a special congratulations to this year’s juniors and seniors who have been selected to join PBK:

Devin Brown
Edmond Dixon
Emma Kalinski
Skyler Pokorny
Kristi Rolf
Molly Willingham
Sydney Willingham
https://stock.adobe.com/search?k=congratulations

The Psychology Department is proud of all of your hard work this semester and previous semesters! Your hard work during your college years has paid off tremendously, and for that we commend you.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts highlighting each student!

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Blog:  https://psych.pages.roanoke.edu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rcpsychology

Twitter: @RC_Psychology

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/RC-Psychology-8140491/about

Website: http://www.roanoke.edu/inside/a-z_index/psychology

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Student Highlight, Uncategorized, Undergraduate News

Internship Highlight: Logan Pasley

How does a Roanoke College psychology student spend spend her summer? This year, senior Logan Pasley chose to intern at Youth Connect of Virginia, serving as a Mentor and Life Skills Provider.

Pasley originally hails from Penhook, Virginia and studies psychology with a minor in sociology at Roanoke. She recently began interning with Youth Connect in her hometown, an opportunity she pursued because “I have always wanted to work with children.” Additionally, Pasley’s goal was to learn more about the foster care system and how it can be improved.

Pasley works remotely for Youth Connect in a paid position while earning course credit, a great example of the wide variety of internship opportunities for psychology majors.

As Mentor and Life Skills Provider, Pasley develops a one-on-one relationship with young clients. When meeting a new client, she learns about their background and uses the Casey Life skills assessment to evaluate “life skills in daily living, self-care, relationships, communication, respect, education, work, etc.” Pasley uses this information to design and implement a six-month plan of action for each client.

Pasley’s work with clients is very hands-on. Each session, her job is “to plan a day in which the client is exposed to activities in the community. I allow my clients to choose a specific goal or task to get accomplished throughout the day and then take them to the most appropriate location to accomplish this goal.”

This work allowed Pasley to develop important skills. She says,

“I learned a way of communicating with individuals who struggle with trauma, mental illness, and grueling circumstances.”

After a full summer of working with Youth Connect, Pasley took the time to reflect on her growth and the impact she’s had on her clients. In what she describes as the most meaningful moment from her internship, Pasley’s was reunited with the first client she ever worked with. She remembers,

“the client’s face lit up when I walked into the room. Her DSS [Department of Social Services] worker added that the client found her voice through me and rediscovered her purpose.”

After her experience working with clients one-on-one, Pasley now wants to turn her attention to the legal system, focusing on “the structural issues that affect every individual involved with the legal system.” She says a change is overdue and is passionate about addressing unseen issues.

We can’t wait to see how Logan Pasley continues to change lives at Youth Connect and beyond!

Are you interested in completing your own internship as a psychology student? Visit the department’s internship page or contact Dr. Findley-Van Nostrand at findely@roanoke.edu.

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Internship, Student Highlight, Undergraduate News

Internship Highlight: Avery Jackson

The Roanoke College psychology department is always proud to recognize the work of our fantastic students. Today we are highlighting Avery Jackson who completed an internship this summer at Children and Family Associates in Roanoke, VA.

Avery is a senior from Yarmouth, Maine who is double majoring in Communications and Psychology. She shares that she was motivated to pursue this internship because “I knew I wanted to have a hand on experience with a counselor.”

While interning at Children and Family Associates, Avery was able to observe counseling sessions and discuss her questions and comments with the counselor afterwards. She shares what a typical day in her internship looked like: ” an average day would involve me going in at noon to debrief with my supervisor on the previous day. I would then sit in on the sessions each hour unless the client requested for me to not be present.”

This direct experience paid off since Avery says, “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work with children, but after this experience I know that I want to pursue this career.”

I asked Avery to reflect on a meaningful moment from her experience. She shares that the most impactful memory occurred as she was wrapping up her internship:

“My supervisor pushed me to fill out the report for a new client. After meeting with this new client, my supervisor asked me what I would diagnose this patient with. I replied with what I thought the diagnoses would be and I remember a huge smile coming across her face. She told me she was so impressed and proud of me. She pushed and encouraged me the whole summer and made me realize that this is what I want to do, and I can do it.“

Avery Jackson ’23

Avery’s work is an exciting example of the benefits of completing internships as a psychology student. We can’t wait to see what Avery does in the future and how her internship experience guides her career!

Psychology students who are interested in completing an internship can contact the department’s Internship Coordinator, Dr. Findley-Van Nostrand (findley@roanoke.edu) for more information.

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