Continuing on with my summary of my July visit to Ann Arbor...

Part II: My Visit in the UM Psychology Department

Several of the professors from my graduate-student days (1984-89) in the UM social psychology program remain on the faculty, plus I've met other people who've joined the Michigan psychology department in the years after my departure. Thus, my trips to Ann Arbor always include a visit to the psychology building on campus.

Not as many people tend to be around in the summer as during the regular school year (many, presumably, are either traveling or just not coming into the office as much). Still, I was able to visit with Phoebe Ellsworth, the professor who launched me on the psychology and law component of my research. Phoebe and I have stayed in regular communication for the entire 16 years since I graduated, exchanging e-mails whenever any new court decisions bearing on social science research come along. We've also collaborated on academic articles, our most recent of which came out in 2000, in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.

Phoebe actually has a joint appointment in both the law school, where she studies jury behavior (her law school homepage), and in psychology, where she studies emotions (her psychology homepage). Phoebe arrived at Michigan for the 1987-88 academic year, having formerly been on the faculty at Stanford (I had applied to graduate school at Stanford and been rejected, but it worked out nicely as I was now able to work with Phoebe at Michigan).

My association with Phoebe began when she put a notice on the bulletin board seeking a Teaching Assistant for the Psychology and Law course she would be teaching in the Winter 1988 term. I got the job, and things went from there. As I've noted previously, my primary research area for roughly the last 15 years has been in adolescent and young adult drinking. However, psychology and law has been a solid secondary area for me. In addition to periodic academic publications in psychology and law, I also write an informal e-mail newsletter every summer for friends, colleagues, and family members, summarizing that year's U.S. Supreme Court term.

The timing of my recent meeting with Phoebe was perfect, as the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts had only been announced the evening before. In addition to the Roberts nomination, Phoebe and I discussed the usual stuff, such as what kind of research each of us was currently working on.

I also toured the floors of the psychology building to see who else I might run into or what news items I might see posted on the bulletin boards, and ended up chatting briefly with a few other people.

One thing I noticed for the first time was a series of photographs on display on the social psychology floor. They were taken by Emeritus Professor Mel Manis, of current and former UM social psychology faculty members. The photos make for an excellent documentation of the recent history of the social psych program.

While walking through the developmental psychology section of the building, I noticed a posted announcement of a very sad nature. Harold Stevenson, a longtime UM professor, had recently died, at the age of 80. Stevenson's obituary appeared in numerous newspapers, including the Washington Post, a testimony to his stature in the field.