Good afternoon. Welcome to the Department of Psychology Commencement.

We are here to celebrate the marvelous accomplishments of each of you in the graduating class, and to thank your parents and friends for supporting you during your college career. All of you have a lot to be proud of.

Let me introduce some of the distinguished faculty and guests on the stage this evening.

We are pleased to have Dean Brian Roberts, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts.

Former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Psychology, Judith Langois.

Professor George Holden, Associate Chair of the Department of Psychology.

Our Marshals for the ceremony are Professor Dennis McFadden, Professor Ira Iscoe, and Professor Wilson Geisler.

Finally, it is our privilege to have a prominent alumnus with us today, Dr. William Voiers. Dr. Voiers was an undergraduate psychology major here some years ago and also got a Master’s and a Ph.D. degree in psychology from the University of Texas. After a number of years with Tracor, Inc., in 1974 Dr. Voiers founded Dynastat Incorporated and has served as President of Dynastat ever since. Although you may not have heard the name of his company, you have benefitted from its work. Dynastat specializes in testing of communications equipment such as cell phones and answering machines to make sure that they transmit human speech with sufficient clarity so that you can make out what is being said. Dr. Voiers has put his knowledge of psychology to work in making the world a better place and has managed to turn a fair profit in the process. Congratulations, Dr. Voiers.

We are living in an exciting time. The world is being transformed by technology. Technological innovations have allowed us to achieve things that were only dreamed about 20 or 30 years ago. The common impression is that the benefits of technology depend only on advances in computer science and engineering. But, there is another critical factor— human behavior.

Technological innovations can increase worker productivity, for example— but only if people show up to work, only if they have been properly educated, and only if their personal lives are stable enough to permit them to concentrate on the job. Technology cannot escape the human element— and that is where you come in— that is where psychology comes in.

As a Psychology major, you learned about the fundamentals of human behavior. You learned how to formulate focused questions, how to look for answers to those questions, and most importantly how to evaluate evidence in support of those answers.

You learned about all that in one of the best Psychology Departments in the world. The students and faculty here are truly remarkable. In the past year alone, the Psychology faculty published 8 books and 284 research articles and book chapters. Our faculty delivered 190 convention presentations and invited addresses and brought in 5.6 million dollars in research funds to the University. This money has enabled more than 400 undergraduate students to get first-hand experience working in psychological research laboratories.

We recently sent out a survey to our alumni to see what psychology majors end up doing after they graduate. We found that 34% of them had jobs in business, 16% were enrolled in postgraduate studies, 9% went on to careers in law, 8% became teachers, 6% went into health or mental health, and the remaining had various other service occupations. More importantly, 78% of our graduates reported that they were very satisfied or generally satisfied with their careers. I sincerely hope that you will be among those 78%.

I know we have been very satisfied to have you as students, and I hope that you will come back and visit us in future years. When you do, you will find that the Psychology Department will be housed in a new building on the north end of the campus on the corner of Dean Keeton Street and Speedway. The building is well under way and will be ready for occupancy next May.

We are grateful to Charlie Seay of Dallas, whose gift of $6 million dollars got the building project under way. We are also grateful to the administration and Dean Roberts for their tireless support of the project. I would also like to thank two members of our faculty who have worked long and hard to make the building possible. Professor Charles Holahan spent nearly 6 years coordinating the planning of the building. If you would please stand up Dr. Holahan. Once the construction began, Dr. Dennis McFadden took over as the head of our faculty building committee. Dr. McFadden, if you would please stand up and be recognized.

At this point it is my distinct pleasure to introduce our commencement speaker, Professor Jamie Pennebaker. Professor Pennebaker is one of our most gifted teachers and has become familiar to many students through his introductory psychology classes. He is also a highly distinguished social psychologist who is in great demand as a speaker world wide. We are fortunate to have him as our speaker today. Professor Pennebaker.

It is my pleasure now to introduce CruiseRweight. When the Psychology Department began hosting its own commencement ceremony two years ago, we started a tradition of featuring student talent that would enhance our celebration. Our musical interlude today is provided by the band CruiseRweight, which received nominations at the latest Austin Music Awards for "Best New Band", "Best Pop Band", and "Best Female Vocalist".

Members include three siblings, Urny, Yogi, and Stella Maxwell, and Dave Hawkins on bass guitar. They played last weekend at The Back Room here in Austin: Tomorrow (Sat.), they will be playing at Houston's Mausaleum.

Let me now call Professor George Holden to the podium to announce the graduate students who are receiving their doctoral degrees in Psychology today:

Bart Solomon Abplanalp – Bart’s dissertation research focused on ways to prevent panic disorder and anxiety in a high risk population.

Our next new Ph.D. is Marianella Casasola, who studied the role of language in category learning in babies.

Kevin Larson. Kevin’s dissertation was titled, The Phoneme Hammer: Using Blocks to Teach Phonemic Awareness

Janel Dina Seagal – Janel has been studying the sense of identity among members of stigmatized groups.

Let me now call on our Honors Advisers to introduce the Psychology Honors Students and tell us about their thesis projects: Professor Art Markman and Professor Charles J. Holahan.

Now for the rest of the graduating seniors of 2001. They are a stellar group. Sara Novak received a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation and will be entering the Ph.D. program in Health Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Diane Thompson is going to Law School at Stanford. Margaret Lindsey is going to law school at New York University. Rachel Jonas will be a research team coordinator with PPD, Inc., a pharmaceutical company. Jenny Dente – will be starting medical school at the University of New Mexico. Aaron Morris – will be working as a Management Consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers after his wedding to Kelly Martin, who graduated from UT with a major in Spanish last December. I don’t have time to tell you about everyone’s story, but I enjoyed learning about them all, and I look forward to the important contributions to society that each of you will be making in the years ahead.

The names of the graduating seniors will be read by Professor Jacqueline Woolley, our Undergraduate Adviser, and Anna Tapsak and Joel Mendolusky, Academic Advisers.

What a glorious occasion. It must be a great joy and relief for you to have completed your degrees. I bet your graduation is also a great joy and relief for your parents and friends who supported you through this challenging journey. I invite you to stand and wave to your parents and friends to express your appreciation for their support.

I would like to thank Alice Andrews and Professor Woolley for all of their work in planning this afternoon’s ceremony, and the staff of the Psychology Department for serving as ushers.

To close, I would like to call on Vicky Loukas, a member of our advising staff, and members of the Long Horn Band, to lead us in the singing of “The Eyes of Texas.”

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