Dr. Janet Swim, a 1983 Hope College graduate now on the psychology faculty at The Pennsylvania State University, will present “The Psychology of Caring for Creation: Climate Change and Climate Justice” on Tuesday, March 6, at 4:30 p.m. at Hope in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall as the college’s second annual John Shaughnessy Psychology Lecture.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Swim chaired the American Psychological Association task force on psychological perspectives on climate change; is past-president of the Society for Environmental, Population and Conservation Psychology; and has worked with the United Nations to include psychological research in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change review of research. She has also served on several committees at Penn State to facilitate interdisciplinary research related to sustainability and promote sustainable behaviors on campus.
She researches reasons why framing of social and environmental problems and social contexts result in psychological barriers to engagement in the problems and, knowing the barriers, how to overcome them. Her publications include several dozen articles published in professional journals and book chapters and two books that she co-edited, and she has given more than 60 invited presentations.
She has been a member of the Penn State faculty since 1988. She completed her doctorate in social psychology at the University of Minnesota earlier that year.
The lecture series is named in memory of Dr. Shaughnessy, a professor emeritus of psychology who died on Dec. 16, 2015. He had taught at Hope for 40 years, from 1975 until retiring at the end of the 2014-15 school year, and was highly regarded for both his teaching and his commitment to engaging students in collaborative research. More than 2,500 students enrolled in his signature Research Methods course across his career. Among other honors, he received the Hope Outstanding Professor Educator (H.O.P.E.) Award from the graduating class in 1992 and the college’s “Janet L. Andersen Excellence in Teaching Award” in 2008. The annual lecture series, which is funded through an endowment and debuted in March of 2017, features psychology alumni who in addition to giving a presentation interact with students, demonstrating ways in which their Hope psychology education informs and shapes their work.
Graves Hall is located at 263 College Ave., between 10th and 12th streets.