School Description:

The Department of Psychology

Welcome to the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan.  The Department of Psychology is one of the largest and strongest departments in the College and at the University.  We have 25 full-time faculty members and more than 20 adjunct or professional affiliates associated with the department.  As well, we have an active collaboration with the faculty at St. Thomas More College.  We offer undergraduate BA and BSc degrees and well as graduate degrees in four areas of specialization:  Applied Social Psychology, Basic Behavioural Science, Clinical Psychology, and Culture and Human Development.  We currently have over 75 graduate students in our four programs working towards MA or PhD degrees.  Thank you for your interest in our programs and welcome to our department.

Vision Statement

The vision of the members of the Department of Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan is reflected by our commitment to the values of excellence, service, diversity, and collegiality.

Excellence

As members of the Psychology Department, we are committed to achieving and maintaining excellence in four main areas: undergraduate teaching and graduate training, research, and professional service. We envision a dynamic, modern undergraduate curriculum offering highly flexible three- and four-year liberal arts degrees with a psychology major, and a cutting edge honors program designed to prepare students for a diverse range of graduate studies in psychology. Each undergraduate program will be designed to provide all students with sophisticated instruction in a broad spectrum of psychological theory, method, and history. With respect to graduate training, our goal is to continue to attract and support high quality students in the applied social, clinical, culture and human development, and general experimental programs, and for these programs to be stable, more integrated, well funded, and recognized as leaders in these areas. Our pedagogical aspirations at both the undergraduate and graduate levels will depend upon the excellence and commitment of our faculty. In order to attract first-rate new faculty members and to maximize the opportunity for our current faculty to achieve excellence, the department must work even harder to provide an environment that supports and fosters research excellence, and to encourage faculty to seek funding from local and national organizations. Ultimately, we envision the department as a nationally and internationally recognized center of excellence for theoretical and applied psychological research with strengths in diverse areas of the discipline.

Service

We are committed to encouraging and recognizing the efforts of faculty and students to conduct research, teaching, and practice that improves the quality of life within the university community as well as locally, nationally, or internationally and that is sensitive to social issues. We envision this goal to be obtained through centers of excellence in research and teaching, through the community-oriented Psychology Services Center, and interdisciplinary work.

Diversity

We are committed to diversity both in scholarship and in the cultural and ethnic representation of its community. We are committed to ensuring that our faculty complement represents expertise in a diverse range of established and emerging areas of theoretical and applied research and practice that are representative of the discipline’s breadth. We envision a department that consists of a faculty and a graduate and undergraduate student population that reflects the cultural and ethnic diversity of the greater community.

Collegiality

We are committed to a shared vision of the future of an organization that respectfully recognizes differences but that is directed toward creating an atmosphere of community, trust, and cooperation among faculty, staff and students. We envision a department with strong intra-departmental communication and that consistently works toward establishing harmony and balance between individual needs/goals/objectives and the greater good of the Department. It is our position that collegiality and mutual respect are the main values underlying the three previously mentioned values. That is, we recognize that the success in realizing the vision of the department depends on the actions and goodwill of individual members. Ultimately, our vision of the Department is one in which the members share a sense of community and who recognize their responsibilities to the community in addition to their rights as contributing members of the community. To achieve this vision, greater effort will need to be expended to provide members with an opportunity to have their voices heard, their concerns recognized, and their differences aired in a respectful and productive forum.

Undergraduate Program Description

Welcome Undergraduates

Welcome to Psychology.  We hope you will join one of the largest and most successful departments on campus.  In our recent Systematic Program Review, we received an A rating for both our Undergraduate and Graduate programs as a sign of their national and international recognition.  Our faculty are leading edge scholars who are dedicated to creativity and innovation in research and teaching.  We believe that you will find your time with us both challenging and rewarding.  We offer both three and four year degrees in both Bachelor or Arts and Bachelor of Science.  We know from experience that our graduates are well received across the province and the country, whether they choose to enter the work force, to pursue professional training in other disciplines, or to proceed to graduate studies in psychology.

Download the Permission Request Form

Once again, welcome.  On behalf of all the faculty and staff in the Department we wish you success in pursuit of your academic goals.

Undergraduate Programs

The Department of Psychology undergraduate program is a large and popular program within the College of Arts and Science. Over the last ten years the Psychology undergraduate program has accounted for 12.7% of all degrees awarded by the College.

Bachelor of Arts (3 year, 4 year, and Honours)

The department offers three undergraduate programs leading to a B.A. The 3-year program requires a total of 90 credit units with a minimum of 30 credit units in Psychology. The 4-year program requires 120 credit units with a minimum of 36 credit units in Psychology. The honours program requires 120 credit units with 60 credit units in Psychology.

Bachelor of Science (4 year and Honours)

The department also offers two undergraduate programs leading to a B.Sc.  The 4-year program requires 120 credit units with a minimum of 36 credit units in Psychology, while the 4-year honours program requires 120 credit units with 60 being in Psychology.  Please see the information below on the B.Sc. degree if you are interested in more information.

Psychology students interested in graduate training in cognitive science and neuroscience will benefit from a better background in basic science. In fact, some universities’ neuroscience graduate programs expect their incoming students to have a BSc, or more math and science training than our existing BA program. Those students who are interested in pursuing graduate training in these areas are advised to contact the Psychology faculty member doing natural science research that the student is interested in, and to apply to the BSc Honours program.

More details related to the organization of courses in the B.Sc. degree options can be found here:

BSc Psychology programs (4 year and Honours) – download PDF format 

We strive to provide students with a liberal arts and science education rather than with skills training. Thus, we aim to acquaint students with the methods, content, and scope of psychology, and not to train practitioners of the discipline and present psychology as a science.  Thus, the curriculum emphasizes the acquisition of knowledge through experimentation and systematic observation.

We strive to ensure that students receive a well-rounded and informed perspective on the discipline of psychology. In addition, our emphasis on research skills encourages the development of critical thinking and communication skills that will prove useful outside of Psychology.

For more information please see our advising handbook and our list of current courses.  If you are interested in gaining research experience or working as a research assistant make sure to check out theresearch opportunities available in the department.

Graduate Program Description

Letter to Potential Applicants in our Graduate Programs

Dear Graduate School Applicant:

Thanks for your interest in our graduate programs. We offer an accredited program leading to the Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, as well as M.A. and Ph.D. programs in Basic Behavioural Science, Culture and Human Development and Applied Social Psychology.

The Clinical Psychology program follows a well-balanced scientist-practitioner model, and is fully accredited by both the Canadian Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association. Students have access to a wide variety of practicum placements (e.g., child, adolescent, adult, family, community-based out-patient services, university-based counselling services, hospital-based in-patient services, and forensic services). Our students benefit from having close working relationships with their research supervisors, and usually secure their top choices of pre-doctoral internship placements. Our website contains many details about the program.

The Cognition and Neuroscience program is intended for students who wish to focus primarily on basic experimental research and theoretical issues, as opposed to applied training. Most faculty in this area have research funding from national granting agencies and they work very closely with graduate students in a wide variety of research topics. Facilities are state-of-the art for working with both human and animal subjects. Current faculty interests range broadly within cognitive processes, psycholinguistics, fMRI, neuropsychology, animal learning and cognition, and behavioral and systems neuroscience.

The Applied Social Psychology program is an innovative area of concentration emphasizing the integration of theory, research and practice in an effort to understand social problems and improve social conditions through program and policy development. Students are trained to carry out basic and field research and to serve as research and evaluation consultants in a variety of community and organizational settings. Programs of study are available at both the Master’s and the Ph.D. levels. In addition to course work and independent research, each student completes supervised practica and internship placements available in a wide range of areas including health, mental health, education, and criminal justice.

The Culture and Human Development program seeks to understand developmental processes in cultural context and across the lifespan. It is built upon interdisciplinary research and training with primary strengths in developmental, social, and clinical psychology as well as cultural and medical anthropology. The program emphasizes qualitative as well as quantitative research approaches, and research in both the local and global contexts.

Our graduate students have typically been successful in securing funding, either externally (e.g., SSHRC, NSERC, CIHR) or internally (i.e., University Graduate Teaching Fellowships). The University is located in Saskatoon, on a beautiful campus along the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. The University has many professional colleges, including Medicine (with a teaching hospital), Nursing, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacy and Nutrition, Physical Therapy, Education, Kinesiology, Law, Commerce, Engineering and Agriculture.