DEPARTMENT
MISSION STATEMENT
It is in memorial
to the foundation established through the struggles of Francis
Cecil Sumner to obtain stature as a contributing psychologist
that Lincoln University's Psychology Department has erected its
mission. In 1915, Lincoln University awarded Francis C. Sumner
his first B.A. with special honors in English, modern languages,
Greek, Latin, and philosophy. This magna cum laude graduate returned
to Lincoln University in 1916 as a graduate student and instructor
of psychology and German. He was awarded the M.A. degree from
Lincoln in 1917 and went on to eventually receive the Ph.D. in
Psychology from Clark University. The first person of African
descent to be awarded the terminal degree in psychology on American
soil led to his historic recognition as the Father of Black American
Psychologists.
Remaining
true to the example of a scholar whose skills encompassed interdisciplinary
strengths, research methodology, social concern, scholarly productivity,
and state-of-the-art training of African-American students has
driven the spirit of our department. This spirit is found to be
consistent with the overall mission of Lincoln University whose
liberal arts and sciences base core curriculum harkens back tot
he mission that produced Dr. Sumner, close to a century ago. Guided
by our University wide and department specific roots of recognizing
the varied educational roles that Lincoln must assume globally,
nationally, technologically, pedagogically, and spiritually; the
psychology department is committed to providing, assessing, and
further developing curricula that fulfills or stakeholders' needs.
Our stakeholders
are our students, their parents, our alumni, the postgraduate
institutions of training that seek our students, the marketplace
that needs and employs the skills our products bring, the commonwealth
in which we reside and the broader community whom we touch and
who touches us. Our mission entails keeping track of those skills
required of our faculty and students in order to be of service
and offer direction. The perspective role that faculty and students
must assume is infused throughout the scholarly practice in order
to advance the rights and privileges of those persons who have
been historically disenfranchised and are in opposition to marginalization.
