The Community Psychology Program is designed to enable the student to develop the conceptual and methodological skills necessary for working with community organizations, especially human service organizations and government. The program seeks to blend the experimental psychologist's focus on methodologically rigorous research and the applied psychologist's interest in understanding and influencing human behavior in complex social settings. For this reason, traditional training in psychological research methods, statistics, individual psychology, and social psychology is supplemented by an extensive curriculum emphasizing methods for community research and action, including principles of prevention and intervention, needs assessment and program evaluation, and organizational change and development.

The program is most appropriate for students who are interested in the study of social and environmental problems, such as drug abuse, troubled youth, homelessness, crime and violence, disasters, and other environmental stressors, and/or in the study of resources and conditions that may combat such problems such as social support, service provision, grass-roots organization, and community empowerment.

The Community Psychology Program is not designed to provide the skills necessary for counseling individual clients, even in community settings. Persons who desire to work as clinical psychologists should apply to the Clinical Psychology Program. Students may also apply to be dually enrolled in the Clinical and Community Programs. Students completing the Community Psychology Program may expect to find employment in various levels of government, human service agencies, research centers, consulting firms and academia.

Faculty and Faculty Interests

Faculty members include Sarah Cook, Marci Culley, Jim Emshoff, Gabriel Kuperminc, Julia Perilla, John Peterson, and Roderick Watts.. For further information about the interests of the community faculty, see Faculty Interests (Community).

Space

The Community Psychology program is located on the 11th Floor of the Urban Life Building. Each of the core faculty members has an office and lab space for graduate students on the west side of this floor. In addition, the space contains a Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing lab for use in telephone survey research.

Undergraduate Students

Undergraduates are offered a course in Community Psychology, as well as many opportunities to engage in community research and action through practicum and independent study courses. In addition, a student may choose to receive a concentration in community psychology by completing a specified body of coursework and practical experiences (see the GSU General Catalog for details).

If you want to talk to a live person, call Gabriel Kuperminc at 404-413-6281 or e-mail him (gkupermincf@gsu.edu).