Farmington Faculty


Steven Quackenbush, Ph.D.

Associate Professor - Psychology

Ph.D., Kansas State University
M.S., Kansas State University
B.A., California State University

In the Classroom: Engaging Students — Setting High Academic Expectations
Steve Quackenbush's ultimate goal is to get students to think like psychologists. He refers to the discipline of psychology as a battlefield and encourages his students to feel that struggle.

In the classroom, Steve explores the possibilities implicit in technology-based teaching and is presently participating in a pilot project to test an automated Student Response System (i.e., clicker technology) that students can use to provide anonymous answers to his questions. This technology allows for the instant tabulation of responses submitted by the students (via their clickers). In addition to simple in-class quizzes, the clickers have allowed Steve to quickly assess the positions that students are willing to take on a specific issue. The results of the poll are quickly displayed in the form of pie charts or graphs without publicly linking any specific student to his or her actual response.


Outside the Classroom: Innovation and Excitement — Putting Theory into Practice
Steve advises a student research group which is currently studying societies' attitudes toward disaster victims. The group creates fictional scenarios of natural disasters and asks questions such as, "Are we more sympathetic to people who have suffered loss due to a tornado or a hurricane?" The students discuss the different variables involved with sympathetic behavior and predict the attitudes and reactions that are expected to occur.


A True Academic — Areas of Special Interest
Steve Quackenbush's scholarly interests include the history of psychology and narrative approaches to the study of life span personality development.

His recent publications have explored issues relevant to the narrative structure of personal identity as well as the general problem of theoretical unification in the social sciences.


Respected in the Field — Noteworthy Accomplishments
Of his various accomplishments, Steve Quackenbush is especially proud of his long track record of involving undergraduate students in original research. In the last five years, ten such projects have resulted in regional or national conference presentations with undergraduate students serving as presenters or co-presenters.


Outside of Academia — Personal Interests and Activities
Outside of the classroom, Steve can be found reading anything and everything and listening to music of all kinds.


Faculty Profiles