Tag Archives: Cummings Center

Grand Opening of the National Museum of Psychology!

The National Museum of Psychology is opening its doors! The Museum’s grand opening will take place Wednesday, June 27th from 4-7pm. Admission is free for this special event and you can RSVP here. Permanent exhibits exploring psychology’s history as a profession, a science, and agent of social change. Particular exhibit highlights include:

  • the history of mental health and illness
  • explorations of the brain, sensation, and perception
  • the study of animal training and behavior
  • and studies of gender, race, and social learning.

Also featured a rotating gallery, curated by students in the Center’s Museum and Archives certificate program. The Museum will be open regularly starting June 28 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday from 11-4 and Thursday from 11-8.

The National Museum of Psychology is part of the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron, which also includes the Archives of the History of American Psychology (be still my heart!).

 

Help Kickstart the National Museum of Psychology!

Kurt Lewin, Edward Tolman, and Clark Hull.

The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology has launch a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the National Museum of Psychology at the Center. In just a few days the campaign has raised more than $17,000 of their $250,000 goal. Donations at every level come with rewards, including a number of fun history themed items (Stanford Prison Experiment t-shirt anyone?) and the opportunity to sponsor an aisle of the archives, a table in the reading room, and more.

Head on over to Kickstarter to back the project and help #KickstartHistory! (And don’t forget to spread the word to your friends and colleagues about this worthy and important endeavour!)

National Museum of Psychology Kickstarter Coming April 13th!

Observations, part of the Association for Psychological Science’s magazine the Observer, has announced that the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio is launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a National Museum of Psychology. The campaign will begin at 3pm April 13th and “the crowdsourcing project plans to reward donors with autographed copies of APS Fellow Philip Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect, naming opportunities in the museum’s reading room, a trip to the museum’s grand opening, and more.” As Observations reports,

The museum hopes to engage audiences on a personal, intellectual, and scientific level. “We have the unique ability and responsibility to tell the story of what it means to be human, through the acquisition, preservation, and presentation of iconic objects, manuscripts, and media,” said Baker. “As a Smithsonian Affiliate, we are honored to take part in the long-standing tradition of insuring that our nation’s history remains relevant and is preserved with the utmost respect to the bold men and women who were pioneers of this exciting discipline.”

More details here.

IamPsyched! Museum Day Live! Inspiring Histories, Inspiring Lives: Women of Color in Psychology

As we mentioned previously on AHP a special IamPsyched! Museum Day Live exhibit is planned for March 12th at the APA Capitol View Conference Center. The event, “Inspiring Histories, Inspiring Lives: Women of Color in Psychology,”  is a collaboration between the American Psychological Association Women’s Programs Office, the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron and Psychology’s Feminist Voices Oral History and Digital Archive Project, in partnership with the White House Council on Women and Girls. The initiative aims to “immerse museum-goers in the histories of women of color in psychology and their legacies for contemporary psychology.” The event will feature a curated, interactive exhibit, a live-streamed interactive discussion, and empowering activities for girls. Full details can now be found on exhibit’s webpage.

In advance of the big day you can also join in the social media excitement by pledging your support on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr through Thunderclap. This platform allows social media postings to be pre-scheduled and unleashed all at once, like an online flash mob. When you sign up to share the IamPsyched! message, it will automatically post just this one message on your behalf. Go here to schedule your Tweet or Facebook post now!

Mar. 12th Pop-Up Museum Explores Contributions of Women of Colour in Psych

Alberta Banner Turner, 1909-2008, Archives of the History of American Psychology, The University of Akron.

As part of the Smithsonian’s Museum Day Live! events on March 12th – National Girl Scout Day – a special pop-up museum exploring the contributions of women of colour in psychology will be launched. The pop-up museum, I Am Psyched!, is a collaboration between the American Psychological Association, The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (a Smithsonian Affiliate), and Psychology’s Feminist Voices. In a recent blog post on the Smithsonian Affiliate blog, the project is described as focusing

on illuminating the past, present, and future of women of color in the field of psychology. Historically, psychology has been dominated by white men. However, the period following World War II and the Civil Rights Movement, women of color entered the field in greater numbers, leaving inspirational stories and paving the way for a more diverse and inclusive psychology.

I Am Psyched! explores these stories and celebrates the legacies of these women through a pop-up museum exhibit, a live-streamed conversation hour with groundbreaking women psychologists, and on-site and virtual learning activities.

The pop-up exhibit, to be installed at the American Psychological Association’s Capitol View Conference Center in Washington, DC, will feature film, sound recordings, images, artifacts, and letters that tell the fascinating story of how women of color have and continue to contribute to psychology.

Full details are available here.

CCHP’s 5 Minute History Lesson: Robbers Cave

The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology has released the third episode of its  5 Minute History Lesson  series. This latest episode explores the Robbers Cave experiment undertaken by Muzafer and Carolyn Wood Sherif. The full episode is embedded above and available on the Cummings Center’s YouTube channel, along with other episodes in the series.

New 5 Minute History Lesson: “Ruth Howard”


The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology has released the second episode in its series 5 Minute History Lesson. The episode is discusses the life and work of psychologist Ruth Howard and features audio from a telephone interview with Howard by Even the Rat was White author Robert Guthrie. More details on the video can be found here. (The first episode in the series was on psychologist James V. McConnell.)