Social and Behavioral Science Honor's Program finishes third year The 2018 Social & Behavioral Science Honor's class program which was designed and taught by Psychology Instructor Jacqueline Bell and Social Work/Sociology Instructor Rhonda Eichler-Johnson is completing its third year at Goodman campus.
The program is set-up predominantly for social work, sociology and psychology majors; however, students in other disciplines with an interest in any of the three fields are encouraged to apply.
The honor's class opens for applications in the Fall semester and after review of applications, those students who are felt to be the best match for the program are interviewed for entrance. Students selected for the program are then notified by the faculty team.
This semester the program has had three wonderful and informative trips off-campus where students were able to not only interact with those professionals in their future fields, but to engage with patients and/or inmates.
This semester, the group toured the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl and were given current statistics and data regarding the prison itself on a tour by the Superintendent Ron Batterfield. Students met with the Veteran inmates working with service dogs, which is a new program at the prison, and they were also involved in question/answer with many current inmates.
Mississippi State Hospital, otherwise referred to as Whitfield was an equally interesting visit where students were given a tour of the facility including the hospital museum and were fortunate enough to meet with a forensic psychologist who spoke with the group and explained his role in working not only in his field of psychology but also as a liaison for the criminal justice system where he is regularly called upon to explain the psychological disorders that potentially cause some of the deviant behaviors of perpetrators.
The last trip was to CANOPY located in Jackson and is a facility for youth suffering from various mental health disorders and also offering a school on the premises for students, who due to their mental health disorder, may be unable to successfully maneuver through the public school system often due to lack of resources within the schools to meet the students' needs.
Students were spoken to by many different departments within the facility and were given the option of applying to not only volunteer but potentially to obtain positions of employment within the facility upon their graduation.
Bell and Johnson are fully committed to the Social & Behavioral Science Honor's program and have been honored to have received calls from some of the largest universities within the country where their former honor's students have gone on to pursue their education.
Many of the department chairs of these universities have reached out not only in praise of the advancement of the students they received due to knowledge garnered from the program but also in praise for offering such an unusual type of class.
The 2018 Social & Behavioral Science Honor's Program consists of the following students who were selected and offered admittance: Jonathan Boles, Amber Clinton-Saunders, Shane Taylor, Miguel Garcia, Karyn Haslett, Ebony Huntley, Tara Adams, Elizabeth Howell, Ana-Claire Edwards, Dionna Brown, Alana Price, Janna Odom, Destiny Sullivan, Abigail Proctor, Katlyn McLellan, Alyssa Albritton, McKenzie Banks and Maggie Melton.
