Spring Break
Psychology department celebrates 'Principles'
Janhavi Purohit
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: News
|
The ranking came from the Chronicle of Higher Education. The textbook, co-authored by Eric Zillmer, Mary Spiers and Bill Culbertson, all of whom teach at Drexel, was originally published in 2001, and was republished in its second edition in 2007.
"What the ranking essentially means is that we have faculty who are very involved in the field, and that's who we want teaching our kids. It's a huge advantage," Kirk Heilbrun, chair of the Department of Psychology, said.
Heilbrun accredited the ranking to the "hard-working and productive faculty" at Drexel.
"It's absolutely brilliant," Jim Tucker, senior vice president of Student Life and Administrative Services, said. "It's about having the right people on the bus at the right time, going in the right direction."
Drexel students also said they felt that the ranking, as well as the new textbook, were an advantage.
"Any time your school's name is out there for a positive reason, it really attracts people's attention the right way, and they start to focus on that, so it's an advantage for students," Jeremy Spry, a senior and Psychology major, said.
Spiers, an associate professor of Psychology at Drexel, said the textbook was originally published with the purpose of better serving psychology students.
"We were using books with a focus on biology and psychology, but we needed a more clinical focus, something that would also be more challenging for the undergraduate students," Spiers said. "Eric [Zillmer] said 'Let's do it,' so we started working on our first edition in 1997, or 1998, and it was published in 2001."
Spiers added that the textbooks reflect student feedback, as she often handed chapters of the book to her students for their opinions.
According to Culbertson, the textbook is successful in that it addresses new aspects of psychology.
"It's great because you get the science and the clinical part of the field. It has the overlap of the science, and the people, which gives it a clinical focus," Culbertson said.
"Principles of Neuropsychology" is currently used in many classrooms on Drexel's campus, as well as across the country and even the globe, in schools including Georgetown university, Vanderbilt university, Northeastern university, the University of Surrey, England, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Bombay, India, according to the Department of Psychology.
Be the first to comment on this story