Alumni connect with others through a broad spectrum of psychology
by Abby Gonzales ’02
As a liberal arts institution, Central College helps position its psychology majors for a range of successful career paths, many of which directly are not related to psychology. This partly is due to the fact that psychology is scientifically based knowledge about human behavior — knowledge that can be useful in a variety of situations and contexts. Students also are trained to use their skills to design, analyze and interpret empirical research and information. A major in psychology places students in a position to work in any job setting that involves human beings.
Nationally, about 76,000 students graduate annually with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Approximately 15 percent of them eventually attain a master’s degree, and about 5 percent earn a doctorate degree or other equivalent terminal degree. The story is different for Central psychology graduates with over 70 percent earning a master’s degree (though not always in psychology), and about 40 percent receiving a doctorate degree or equivalent terminal degree from universities and professional schools all over the country.
Some alumni stay with the traditional field and become psychologists, psychiatrists or counselors. Some lean toward service-related fields and become social workers, physicians, attorneys or teachers. Others gravitate toward research, marketing, advertising or business. All have one thing in common — people. In this issue of the Central Bulletin, four alumni are highlighted sharing how their Central educations led them to help people.
Holly Hartsock ’99 helps people with disabilities find work at the Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services.
Bill Rankin ’69 uses his research skills on a daily basis as a technical fellow at the Boeing Company to make sure people on airlines are safe.
An interest in motivation sent Chris Hulleman ’93 to study social and personality psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Now in his fifth year of school, Hulleman is working toward a doctorate to become a college professor and help students reach their goals.
Shirley Van Konynenburg Borgman ’55 was in Central’s inaugural class of psychology graduates. Although she started out in education, Borgman helped hundreds of individuals deal with death and dying in her work as a bereavement coordinator at Hospice of Pella.
Holly Hartsock ’99
Hartsock found her calling
Holly Hartsock ’99 always thought she wanted to be in the medical profession. She found herself around the University of Iowa hospitals and clinics at a young age, watching her mom, a nurse, at work.
“I always knew in some way I wanted to work in human services,” said Hartsock, a rehabilitation counselor for Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services (IVRS) in Cedar Rapids. “But, this past year or so, it dawned on me — I just love helping people.”
Hartsock’s current position is similar to that of a career counselor. She determines client eligibility for services and develops individual plans leading to employment for individuals with disabilities. She develops relationships with businesses in the communities to identify employer needs for recruitment, disability awareness, job accommodation and follow-up.
The first week on the job, Hartsock encountered a high school junior with multiple mental and physical disabilities, which presented issues in his efforts at school and work. However, the young man was passionate about work. With assistance from Hartsock and IVRS’s resources, the individual made transitions from high school to adulthood that exceeded expectations. He started with a fast-paced job at McDonald’s and realized it wasn’t for him. Instead, the young man volunteered as a kitchen assistant/dining room attendant for a retirement village. He now has assumed a full-time position with benefits and is a valued member of the retirement community.
“His disabilities didn’t hinder him but were a challenge,” said Hartsock. “He’s learned how to handle them. He moved out of his parents’ home to a residential facility and progressed to where he’s now living independently. He’s matured and evolved into a citizen who gives back to the community. You should never judge a book by its cover.”
While the unemployment rate in Iowa as a whole is around 5 percent, it exceeds 60 percent for Iowans with disabilities, according to advocates. About 60 percent of jobs in Iowa now require some postsecondary education, not to mention familiarity with a computer and ability to multitask. Inadequate academic preparation and skills can be an obstacle for those with disabilities.
Some employers might think hiring workers with mental or physical problems could be more costly. Or, they may lack confidence in the employee.
“Part of my job is working with employers and developing relationships, helping them understand how candidates with disabilities are just as qualified candidates as anyone else walking through the door,” she said. “You can’t always see a disability. And they have to inform the employer if they need reasonable accommodations. That’s where we become a resource to employers as well. We’re trying to build relationships and help them to understand how reasonable accommodations aren’t really going to cost them. It’s going to give them a very good candidate who is going to be a successful employee.”
Working in a state and federal-funded organization has its challenges.
“With any type of public service, you always are dealing with the realities of government regulations,” she said. “But, your ultimate goal is to help your client. So you do what you can with what you have, and sometimes that shortage of resources and funding helps me do my job even better than if I had all the money in the world.”
The Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation program is funded through Rehabilitation Services Administration and receives state-matched funding through the Iowa Department of Education.
“Right now, we’re carrying a waiting list, and it’s hard to tell people we can’t serve them until they move up the list,” said Hartsock. “It gets more optimistic at times. But you’re looking for resources, so the greatest thing that comes out of it is you become more resourceful as a counselor. I think in itself, it has made me a better counselor knowing where else to look and give people advice.”
While at Central, Hartsock felt she needed a psychology background to work in the human service industry.
“I found psychology matched who I was and what I wanted to do,” she said.
Doing what she does best and loving it
While at Central, Hartsock participated in an internship with the occupational therapy department at Pella Regional Hospital, and was a companion for an individual residing at a nursing home for human development and aging class.
“I never imagined the two experiences would intersect as they did,” said Hartsock. “In meeting and getting to know this person, I not only had one of the most meaningful experiences of my life, but also I found what it truly means to listen and learn, which are vitally important in my line of work. The individual I worked with that semester experienced a fall that resulted in the need for significant medical attention and rehabilitation. I had the opportunity to work with her throughout her rehabilitation and provide moral support and guidance along the way.”
Hartsock said the experience led her to consider counseling and rehabilitation together. Because of this experience, she had greater confidence in entering the counseling field and found her chance through Rehabilitation
Counseling Program at the University of Iowa.
“I think the greatest thing about Central’s program is you can specialize in an area that interests you because there are so many different tracks in psychology,” she said. “One of the things that most opened my eyes to what we do in psychology was research. The research symposium and doing your own research project really helped prepare me for what I did after Central in my graduate studies. It was a great challenge.”
After graduating from Central, Hartsock worked one year as a physical therapist associate. She started classes at the University of Iowa in 2000 and graduated with a master’s degree in May 2002. While at Iowa, she had an internship with IVRS where she eventually ended up working full time.
Now her greatest satisfaction is seeing an individual become employed and successful and closing them out as a client.
“We have the ability to go see our clients at work,” said Hartsock. “To see the satisfaction on their face when they reach their goals — that’s the greatest feeling. I love to see my clients achieve what they’ve done mostly for themselves and see their true independence come through. A lot of times, I’m just a tool along the way — a benefit — to help them get there.”
Bill Rankin ’69
Crunching numbers for safety
Three Mile Island.
Three words that bring to mind a picture of nuclear oblivion. March 28, 1979, the nuclear plant near Middletown, Pa., suffered a severe core meltdown when the facility experienced a failure in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant.
The accident caught federal and state authorities off guard. The most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, control room design, reactor operator training, radiation protection and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations where human factors engineering had a role to play. It also prompted the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. Resultant changes in the nuclear power industry and at the NRC had the effect of enhancing safety.
For Bill Rankin ’69, Three Mile Island is more than just a historical event. For him, it was a significant psychological test. It was one test nuclear power plant operators failed, but one he has worked tirelessly to ensure it never failed again.
“I did all my work at the Battelle Seattle Research Centers for the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Rankin said. “I worked with NRC for seven years from 1979-86.
“We analyzed which human factors issues contributed to this accident,” he said. “Following this analysis, my job was to work with the NRC and the nuclear plants in the areas of control room design, operator training and emergency operating procedures to make sure this kind of accident never happens again.”
Throughout his career, Rankin has parlayed his interests in psychology into a career of analyzing and working with the human factor.
“I found a whole new area of psychology when I was at Central,” said Rankin. “I knew I didn’t want to be a clinical psychologist, but experimental psychology really hit a key with me. So I switched majors from mathematics to psychology. Then I went to the University of Nevada at Reno from 1969-70.”
After completing his service as a conscientious objector from 1970-72, Rankin returned to grad school at Washington State University in Pullman where he received a master’s and a doctorate in psychology with a minor in sociology. Then, Rankin moved to Seattle, Wash., and got a job at the Battelle Seattle Research Centers and began to put his knowledge of the human factor to work.
“My training in human learning and performance was important then because that’s what human factors deal with — improving human performance through design and training,” he said. “Battelle was selected to do that type of research for the NRC. The last thing I did in the nuclear industry was evaluate nuclear power plant maintenance programs.”
Rankin continues to study how people perform, and how people can perform better. Today he’s doing that at The Boeing Company. Since 1986, Rankin has worked for Boeing in corporate human resources, training, engineering and customer service.
“At Boeing, I’m able to change my career every three to four years and do things experimental psychologists are trained to do but often don’t get a chance to do.”
Rankin feels his work never goes unnoticed.
“At Boeing your work is always applied,” he said. “You do very few theoretical studies. You may collect data, but it’s so you can apply it to a design or something similar. You need to have the knowledge in your head. You spend at least two years doing research to get the knowledge.”
Working in the area of aircraft maintenance human factors for the last 10 years, Rankin’s team developed a process called the Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA), which is used to investigate the cause of maintenance errors. Rankin and his team have trained hundreds of aircraft maintenance organizations around the world to use the MEDA process. The end result is to use his training to help people fly safely wherever they may travel.
The human factor
“Safety is the number one issue in aviation,” said Rankin. “Airlines want to know what they’re doing well and what they can do better.”
And travel is a part of Rankin’s job.
“I enjoy interacting with people from different cultures. I’ve visited over 40 countries on my business travels. Some are among the richest countries of the world, and some are among the poorest. But, the people are pretty much alike.”
Helping people is the foundation of much psychological study. And, the psychology program at Central is designed to combine communication skills and a foundation in research to prepare students for careers or graduate study. In Rankin, the foundation was laid for advanced research of “the human factor.”
In addition to his psychology degrees, his liberal arts education helped him in all his work positions. One of the founding staff at Central’s computer center in 1968, Rankin’s computer knowledge, mathematical background and psychology degrees, prove to be a good fit for him. So, it makes sense Rankin’s interest in computing and math is one of his strengths in psychology — statistics. Training evaluation and dealing with computer software and statistical analysis are down his alley.
“Most of the work I’ve done since Central College has dealt with human factors in issues in high tech industries — control room design, training evaluation, selection test development, procedure development and error investigation — making sure people work safely and provide a safe service for others. It’s never ending. Everything I’ve learned comes together so I can make sure people are safe. It truly is a liberal arts education at work.”
Chris Hulleman ’93
An interest in what motivates people, motivates hulleman
Coming to Central College, Chris Hulleman ’93 already knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a teacher and a coach. After a few life-changing experiences, Hulleman is living his dream.
“One of my supervisors used to say, ‘You can get one of two things out of life. You can get what you want, or you can get what other people give you,’” he explained. “You can go out and pursue your dreams and goals, or you can sit around and whatever is left over, then you’ll get it.”
Hulleman stepped back and took a look at what really excited him. What did he want to do with his life? He always had an interest in psychology and was interested in how to motivate people and how people learn.
“I think the thing that defines me and what I’m interested in is getting people from the position where they’re saying, ‘I have to do this’ to ‘I want to do this.’”
Hulleman thinks about that concept in several ways including athletics and academics.
“How do you help people develop intrinsic desire and love for what they’re doing?” he posed. “Self-motivation applies to a lot of different areas.”
That’s how Hulleman decided on the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He went there to study goals, intrinsic motivation and performance. Hulleman received a master’s degree in 2002 and currently is working toward a doctorate to become a college professor.
Right now, he is in the middle of a two-year fellowship through the National Science Foundation, ending next year.
“We bring in researchers outside of education to do research on educational issues,” he said.
Wisconsin was one of 12 schools in the nation to receive a $25 million grant.
“It’s a great training experience,” he said. “When you go into graduate school, you really get narrowed in and do research, and there’s a reason for that because you’re supposed to become an expert. But the problem is, you get so narrow you forget to connect with other disciplines and how other people think about things. It puts things back in perspective.”
Part of the fellowship research looks at intervention in the classroom and manipulation of different aspects of the classroom to see if it has positive effects on the students’ interest in the course and their performance.
“One thing we look at is how meaningful the class is to people,” he explained. “How useful is it for them in their everyday life or future? Findings so far indicate the more people see the value of the course they are studying, the more likely they are to be interested and perform at a high level.”
The research centers around what factors influence people’s performance, such as how well students perform in the classroom and how interested they are in the subject. Of course, the follow up to that is if the interest continues over a long period of time and if it affects the types of classes students take in the future.
The research aspect of Hulleman’s studies is something he wasn’t sure would be his cup of tea, but he has started to like it.
“One of the unique things about Central’s psychology program is as an undergraduate, you do your own research project junior year,” Hulleman said. “Not a lot of schools do that. Many have students write a research proposal, and that’s different than actually conducting your own research. You just learn so much. That’s a great strength of Central, and it sets it apart from a lot of other schools.”
Hulleman never saw himself doing much research at all. But being trained in it and having the different tools to be able to do it correctly, he was able to see how he could answer some of the questions himself.
“That has captivated me,” he said. “And right now, I’m really focused on research for my dissertation.”
Balancing act — student, researcher, teacher, husband and father
As a graduate student, Hulleman juggles all different kinds of roles including researcher, teacher and student.
“It’s a struggle on how to make decisions and balance it all — school, family and personal life,” he said.
Juggling family, four children under seven — soon to be five, in addition to spending 20-30 hours a week studying and 20-30 hours a week teaching and doing research can be taxing but worth it.
He’s used to staying busy and stretching himself. Following graduation, Hulleman wanted to get some real life experience. Not being able to take advantage of Central’s study abroad program, he decided to go to London on a work exchange program for six months. Upon arriving home, he found out he won a Rotary scholarship to study psychology in Australia but was unable to go because classes started in a month. Instead, Hulleman got a teaching and coaching job at Indianola High School for the year and then set his eyes on the land down under.
While in Australia, Hulleman earned a post-graduate diploma in psychology while playing for an American football team.
After his time in Australia, he opted to work and get more life experience as a social worker in Des Moines.
“There were things I wanted to do,” he said. “I didn’t want to go and study something for five or six years I wasn’t really sure excited me right after graduating college. It’s kind of a daunting thought. That’s a lot of time. I loved the idea of being a college professor and teaching psychology, but I really didn’t know what specific area to pursue.”
After a year, he moved to Pella with wife Teresa McGovern Hulleman ’93, who was an assistant women’s basketball coach at Central, while he served as Gaass Hall director and an assistant football coach. He also worked in the counseling center and taught drug and alcohol education. Eight years after graduating from Central, Hulleman enrolled at the University of Wisconsin.
“There’s just an amazing flexibility with a psychology degree,” he said. “One of the reasons I chose psychology was because of that flexibility.
“I think I picked well.”
Shirley Van Konynenburg Borgman ’55
Borgman makes Pella’s hospice a reality
Thirty years after her graduation, Shirley Van Konynenburg Borgman ’55 dusted off her Central degree in psychology and looked around her. She hadn’t intended to wait this long to begin her career, but sometimes life just gets in the way.
“I didn’t know where I was going at that time in my life,” she said. “After the kids left home, I thought, ‘Now what?’”
The “what” was a need in Pella for care and support of patients and families as they faced death.
In 1982 as she was helping take care of her husband’s ill cousin, Borgman started to think about her future. She began reading On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and really became fascinated with bereavement, having had a bad experience as a child.
“I wanted to help people get through difficult times, especially since it wasn’t easy for me when there was a death in my family,” said Borgman. “My family never talked about death and dying. Funerals weren’t like they are now. When my grandmother died, we stayed behind a curtain and weren’t to be seen.”
Borgman started to make some calls to Pella Regional Health Center to see if there was any talk of starting a hospice.
“Nothing permanent was in the works,” she said. “I told them I would love to be a volunteer if things got going.”
At that point, things “got going,” and Pella’s hospice became a reality in 1983. Borgman was one of the three founders and took the role as administrator. Ed Willis, professor of psychology, and Jim Schulze, associate professor of psychology, served on the first board. Four or five years later, Borgman moved into bereavement when a new administrator was hired.
Helping people put their lives back together
“I had to educate myself and do a lot of reading on bereavement, and I learned a lot quickly,” said Borgman who retired in 1999. “It was a wonderful experience, and I learned as much from those grieving as I did from books. I hadn’t experienced the death of my husband or children or had a miscarriage ... but these people had and were trying to put their lives back together.”
Borgman put new order in her life. After graduating with the first psychology class in 1955, she taught fourth grade at Webster Elementary in Pella for three years before moving to the family farm with husband Glenn ’54 in 1958. Instead of continuing to teach, she became a stay-at-home mother to three children: Dean, Dee and Dirk ’87.
Borgman got the itch to start working again and wanted to use her psychology degree — a degree that meant a lot to her.
She recognized the great need for support classes in Pella and developed them. She became a teacher again.
“I knew I had organizational skills to create hospice,” Borgman said. “I felt comfortable listening to people’s sad stories and knew my role was a listening role, especially since I never went back to school to become a counselor. There was no need to [go back to school]. I was happy with my life. When I saw people move on with their grief — that’s when I knew I was in the right place.”
Borgman struggled herself with understanding the grieving process, but during her support groups, she came up with a variety of different takes on the subject and created her own grief wheel.
“There’s always improvement in the lives of those grieving,” she said. “It’s so rewarding to see the changes in people. When they first are involved in hospice and the programs, they are so sad, and it’s so nice to see them 10 weeks later looking like they’re going to make it.”
Central helped Borgman mature and gain self-confidence. Without it, she may never have had the courage to take on such a task as helping start a much-needed hospice program.
“I credit Central with giving me a wonderful liberal arts education and helping me grow up a great deal,” she said. “My strength is creating something new, and it’s exciting to be able to do that. It’s a wonderful challenge. The spiritual gift God has given me helped me create something in the caring field.”
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Faculty Voice
A psychology degree prepares you for more than you thought
By Ed Willis, professor of psychology
Over the years, the most persistent question I get from students thinking about a major or minor in our department is, “What can I do with psychology?” Sometimes I give the somewhat flippant but nonetheless true response, “Anything you want to do, especially if it involves working with people.” The best way to deal with the question, however, is to let our graduates answer.
Central College psychology alumni are pursuing a variety of interesting careers both within and outside of psychology and making important contributions to the broader culture. Careers range from counselors to attorneys, psychiatrists to physicians, missionaries to administrators and business analysts to pastors. The list of names on the following page could continue for several pages, but I think you get the picture.
A few years ago, Jim Schulze and alumna Jan Steddom Garner ’83 surveyed psychology alumni who graduated between 1956 (when the psychology major was established at Central College) and 1991; a little later I surveyed alumni who graduated between 1992 and 1999. Both surveys showed similar and highly encouraging results with alumni exceeding the national average of those furthering their education. Alumni often tell us they enter their graduate program with insecurities about being able to compete with students from major universities, only to discover they have had experiences not shared by their classmates and actually are better prepared for graduate study.
Each year, roughly 25 percent of our psychology graduates go directly to graduate school. The rest find employment, both in psychology-related and non-psychology-related jobs throughout the United States or choose to participate in programs like the Peace Corps, VISTA or JET (teaching English in Japan). Psychology-related jobs at the bachelor level provide valuable experiences in dealing with a wide range of clientele such as emotionally disturbed children/adolescents, people with developmental dis- abilities, family-violence victims, people with autism and alcohol and drug abusers.
Within five or six years, these folks usually decide to go to graduate school, mainly because they realize they need an advanced degree to be more effective with their clients or because they decide to move in a different direction.
Throughout the decades, we have remained faithful to the fundamental goal of our program: to create, in a liberal arts context, a research-based curriculum helping students discover ways psychological science can inform their lives as individuals and as participants in the larger world. We are idealists who want our graduates to be positive change agents and who want our curriculum to evolve, always keeping it on the cutting edge of the discipline. Our current students are reaping benefits. In the last three years, for example, 13 student research projects have been presented as poster-sessions at the Midwestern Psychological Association Convention in Chicago, and seven projects have been accepted for presentation at the 2006 convention this spring. This kind of experience positively influences decisions of graduate admission committees. The successes of our current students and alumni have led our program to be recognized as a benchmark program throughout the Midwest. For this and other reasons, information about our graduates is very important to us. I’ve recently taken on a sabbatical project to re-survey all psychology alumni to find out what everybody is currently doing, so you will be hearing from me soon.
A recent development will make it possible for our department to be more effective than ever in preparing psychology students for life after Central College: the education and psychology building. This new facility will put psychology faculty into close collaborative contact with faculty in education, biology and chemistry and will bring the latest technology to bear on the teaching process.
Interactive computer classrooms allow students to work on computers, for example, participating in survey and experimental research or taking and administering/scoring psychological tests online while getting instruction in a course. Rooms with mounted video equipment and one-way mirrors facilitate data collection in research projects and allow observation and simultaneous feedback for students practicing counseling skills.
I speak for the psychology department when I say it is hard to think about leaving Jordan Hall, which is full of warm memories. However, when we consider what psychology students of the future are going to need, we know we are doing the right thing by moving into this new building.
After all, the heart of the psychology program at Central College is not located in any particular place on campus but rather in people and relationships. I wonder how long it will take before psychology students begin thinking of the education and psychology building as the “Home of the Psychos.”
A few years ago, I encountered a man in Maytag who was on campus to hire for his firm. When he found out I was a psychology professor he brightened up and said, “Oh, I love it when people I hire have taken psychology courses!” I asked him why, and he replied, “When I hire people who have not had any psychology, they are very helpful to us for a few years, but when we want to bump them up into a supervisory or management position, we can’t; they’re stuck. But if they have some psychology, they have the interpersonal and relationship skills allowing them to understand people and to move up in our organization.”
Maybe “Anything you want to do” is not so flippant after all.
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