Past as Prologue for the Twenty-First Century 475Goodwin (1992) suggested that “the APA’s involvement
with teaching was sporadic at best in the years prior to
1945 .... [T]he APA had other priorities during that time
(p.330)... establishing disciplinary identity for psychology
and professional status for psychologists (p. 339).” In con-
trast, Nelson and Stricker (1992) made a persuasive case that
“the APA has demonstrated a clear commitment to issues of
teaching and the needs of teachers since 1945” (p. 346). An
Education and Training (E&T) Board became part of a reor-
ganized APA in 1951 so that “organized psychology not lose
sight of its responsibilities in addressing more fundamental
issues of education (i.e., in psychology as part of liberal edu-
cation)” (p. 348). The E&T Board was instrumental in spon-
soring the various conferences on undergraduate education
reviewed by Lloyd and Brewer (1992).
Brewer (1997) and Ernst and Petrossian (1996) also de-
scribed how the APA established in 1996 a continuing com-
mittee for Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools
(TOPSS). This action recognized that “an estimated 800,000
students take precollege psychology courses each year” and
that “approximately 15,000 students took the [AP] exam,
making psychology the fastest growing Advanced Placement
exam in the history of the ETS’s program” (Brewer, 1997,
p. 440).
Wight and Davis (1992) described the various stages that
Division 2, Teaching of Psychology (now the Society for the
Teaching of Psychology), went through in serving APA mem-
bers committed to learning not just about scientific method-
ologies and results from one another but about the pedagogy
by which the discipline might be more effectively communi-
cated to its students. Daniel (1992) described the evolution of
the division’s journal, Teaching of Psychology,which serves
similar needs and functions in the description, evaluation,
and dissemination of innovative pedagogical and program-
matic practice. Focusing on regional service activities, Davis
and Smith (1992) described a plethora of conferences for
teachers and students of psychology. Focusing on how psy-
chologists have gathered students to learn more about the dis-
cipline at the college and community college campus levels,
Cousins, Tracy, and Giordano (1992) described the histories
of Psi Chi and Psi Beta, the two national honor societies.
As the twentieth century came to a close, the APA Division
2, Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP), posted a
Web site (www.teachpsych.org) available to students and fac-
ulty members for information about the division, its journal,
national and regional teaching conferences, teaching awards,
a mentoring service, a departmental consulting service, news-
letters, and a moderated discussion group for psychology
teachers at all levels of instruction. The STP Office of Teach-
ing Resources in Psychology (OTRP Online) provides
information on course syllabi, bibliographical material on di-
versity and cross-cultural issues, ethical issues in teaching,
student advising issues and practices, scientific writing, and
electronic databases for the journalTeaching of Psychology.
As another manifestation of APA’s long-range commit-
ment to academic psychology programs articulated with the
initiation of the new Education Directorate in the early
1990s, 99 participants from high school, community college,
college and research university, and other professional set-
tings met at James Madison University in 1999 for the
Psychology Partnerships Project (P3). It was the most di-
verse assembly of psychology teachers to date, building on
the group dynamic approach used at the St. Mary’s Confer-
ence of Maryland a decade earlier. Nine issues groups—
advising, curriculum, faculty development, research, tech-
nology, assessment, diversity, partnerships, and service
learning—developed projects to create networks, materials,
and strategies for promoting the teaching of psychology and
the lifelong learning needs of students and faculty in the di-
verse, changing world of the twenty-first century.
As Weiten et al. (1993) noted, “teaching and learning are
communal activities” (p. 157). They described a portfolio of
case studies that demonstrated the movement of psycholo-
gists from isolation to increasing communication and colle-
giality. With the advent of the twenty-first century, the service
activities of psychologists have fostered increased colle-
giality in behalf of the teaching of psychology. Electronic
communication networks enable this collegiality to have un-
precedented depth and breadth.PAST AS PROLOGUE FOR THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURYPsychology is not only with us, but swamping us. Its popularity
is so great as to arouse suspicions of superficiality, or even
quackery. It has become almost a fashion, so that publishers
claim that the word psychologyon the title page of a book is suf-
ficient guarantee for a substantial sale. (p. 596)Was this an editorial from a newspaper or a speech by a leg-
islator in the year 2000? A commentary from a church pulpit
in the 1950s? The quote is from an article by a faculty mem-
ber at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Max Schoen
(1926), writing about the purposes of elementary courses in
psychology in his era. In response to such popularity, the au-
thor suggested that the aims of psychology in colleges were
to “create an intelligent reading audience” and “to inculcate
in the student a tolerant, open-minded and broad attitude to-
wards human affairs and human problems” (p. 596).