Oakland University Psi Chi

By Christina Randall

Dr. Taku is a professor here at Oakland University who is interested in the area of posttraumatic growth.  Posttraumatic growth is defined as a positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or traumatic event and is the outcome as well as the process of growth through a person’s traumatic experience.  Overall, Dr. Taku is interested in how people change after traumatic events as well as how we can help those who have survived the traumatic events in history.  She is very interested in how people grow, cope, and react to trauma in different ways.  Through posttraumatic growth, people can grow in areas such as relating to others (i.e. having a greater sense of closeness to others), experiencing new possibilities (i.e. developing new interests), finding personal strength (i.e. having a greater feeling of self-reliance), experiencing spiritual change (i.e. having a stronger religious faith), and finding appreciation of life (i.e. changing one’s priorities about what is important in life).  The goal of Dr. Taku’s research is to study the cross-cultural characteristics of posttraumatic growth as well as its predictors.

Dr. Taku has quite a story to tell when she is asked how she first became interested in psychology, specifically the area of posttraumatic growth.  Dr. Taku started off as an undergraduate at Kobe University in Japan, majoring in education.  However, as a junior in college, she experienced an enormous earthquake which killed 6,434 people, injured 43,792, and left 3 people missing.  As a result of the earthquake, 150,000 houses were destroyed and many lives were impacted.  After experiencing the earthquake, Dr. Taku changed her major to psychology and continued her education at Nagoya University to receive her Ph.D.  After her education at Nagoya University, she traveled to the United States from Japan to continue her Post-Doctoral work at UNC Charlotte and then came here to Oakland University.

In addition to posttraumatic growth, Dr. Taku is also interested in cross-cultural psychology, clinical psychology, and statistics.  Her current and future goals of research in the area of posttraumatic growth are to encourage people to express emotions or feelings (negative psychological symptoms as well as positive psychological growth) and to encourage professionals to find the bridge to growth instead of psychologists obsessing over how to simply reduce the negative symptoms.  Dr. Taku hopes that from her research people learn that each psychological construct can be defined differently.  Dr. Taku wants to give participants in her research a chance to define themselves and then collect data instead of the participants being defined by someone else.  From her own research, Dr. Taku has learned how research should connect to each other and that her specific area of research is a part of history.  Additionally, her research area is closely related to Piaget as well as current researchers.  Dr. Taku has learned so much through research and believes that students should get involved in research without a doubt.  In the time she has spent at Oakland University, she has enjoyed working with her research assistants so much.  They have helped her to build up her research as well as make it more scientific, and she says she couldn’t have done any research without her research assistants along the way. Dr. Taku feels that research is an energetic job and is something to be proud of, and if you are interested in becoming a psychologist, you should definitely get involved.

by: Andrew Madison 

In the last three years, the Department of Psychology at Oakland University has lost seven professors – several to retirement or resignation and one to promotion.  Because of this, an effort is now under way to hire a Chairperson, and one professor.  All full-time members of the department will be involved in the hiring process.  They will be examining and evaluating the applicants’ vitas and/or portfolios, participating in face-to-face interviews, and ultimately voting on to whom the department will make an offer.  Dr. Randy Hansen is chairing the committee to find a new Chairperson, and Dr. Lewis will be chairing the committee to hire a new assistant professor.  I sat down with Dr. Lewis to ask her about how the process was going, but the first thing I asked was what exactly the responsibilities of the chairperson.

The responsibilities of a chairperson would be best described as eclectic; Dr. Lewis called it an “odd and funny” position.  A Chairperson must maintain regular professor duties such as teaching, grading school work, and all of the other responsibilities involved in helping the students at Oakland University achieve their academic desires.  Like many other psychology professors, they must be active in research; not only in conducting research, but in consistently having work published.  Beyond the duties of professor, the new Chair will have to help monitor sub-committees, deal with the rank/promotion decisions, serve as a messenger between the faculty and the administration, help support the faculty to the best of their abilities, mediate in any sort of conflicts, deal in the hiring part-time faculty, and even help manage Pryale Hall.  Dr. Lewis said that this last task would be far more difficult, without the help and dedication of Sandy Gabert and Sandy Neiman. 

All members of the department play a role in hiring a new Chairperson and a new faculty member.  Dr. Lewis said that they will look for a candidates based on their involvement in research, their teaching experience (such as whether they are new PhDs, finishing up a post doc, an assistant professor for the new faculty position, or whether they are associate professors or full professors who have earned tenure at another institution).  In addition to their professional record, the faculty wishes to ensure that the new hires will fit in with the professors already in place at Oakland University.  A strong advantage for applicants would be experience with implementing graduate education. Dr. Lewis stated that several faculty of the department would eventually like the psychology department to offer a graduate program. 

The search for qualified candidates is progressing.  Applicants for the Chairperson position have been sending in their vitas and portfolios.  The advertisement for the new assistant professor position will be placed in the major psychology newspapers in December.  The new faculty will not begin until February. In the world of academia for psychology, new faculty is hired by March for the next fall semester.  Barring any unforeseen obstacles, there will be two new professors next fall, one of which who will serve as Chairperson, and one who will be starting a career as a professor.  For students, this means having an increased number of course options and research assistant positions, which are crucial for those considering going on to graduate school in psychology.