Department of Psychology and Communication

• Option 1: Add the addictions minor to any bachelor’s degree.
• Option 2: Enroll in both academic certificates:
  • Chemical Addictions: Principles and Practice
  • Professional Skills in Chemical Addictions Counseling

Academic certificates can be pursued independently of a bachelor’s degree, making them an option for non-degree seeking students or those with a bachelor's degree from another institution. Both the minor and certificates require the same cohort of eight courses.  

Current students can add the addictions minor or both academic certificates through the Student Profile using the Change My Major link. For more information, contact Ben Barton. 

• The addictions certification coursework can typically be completed in one and a half to two years.  
• It is important to review the appropriate certification board website to find additional requirements you will need for certification. For example, depending on your academic degree, you may be required to have between 2000-6000 hours under clinical supervision.  
• Considering addictions clients may have other psychological issues, the addictions program faculty believe all students should complete the following psychology courses:
  • Introduction to psychology
  • Abnormal psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Learning or applied behavior analysis. 

See Idaho certification requirements

• National Association of Social Workers (NASW)

  Specialty certification for Clinical MSW Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Social Worker.
  Visit NASW

• NAADAC: Association for Addiction Professionals  

  Certified Addiction Counselor I and II, Master Addiction Counselor. 

  Visit NAADAC

• ATTC: Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network  

  Licensing and credentialing information across bodies.

  Visit ATTC Network  

Internships are one of the best ways to gain experiential learning outside the classroom, allowing you test out career paths, build connections and apply your education in real-world settings. Benefits include: 

• Applying classroom knowledge and skills in the workforce
• Developing professional and graduate-school readiness skills
• Exploring career fields and testing potential paths
• Building your network by working alongside professionals
• Gaining hands-on experience that makes you more marketable after graduation
• Discovering what matters most to you in a future career
• Earning academic credit that counts toward your major requirements 

Internships can also qualify for academic credit. To learn about internships for academic credit before you enroll at University of Idaho, you may work with your admissions counselor. Current students looking for internships for credit can visit Inside U of I.  

Internships in psychology, communication and organizational sciences span a wide range of career paths, including: 

• Mental health and social work
• Education (K–12 and higher education)
• Advertising and marketing
• Sports psychology
• Public health
• Law and law enforcement
• Human resources
• Nonprofit work 

On-campus opportunities

• Peer mentor with the Ravens Scholars Program
• Peer educator with Vandal Health Education
• Writing support for the communication program newsletter

Local opportunities

• Alternatives to Violence of the Palouse
• Latah Recovery Center and Crisis Center
• Milestone Decisions
• Opportunities Unlimited
• Moscow Mentor Program 

Regional and national opportunities

• Counseling agencies
• Crisis hotlines
• Marketing groups
• Political campaigns and offices
• Public K–12 schools
• Sports training and physical therapy facilities
• Residential mental health treatment centers
• Violence prevention centers 

Awards

• Phil Mohan Award
• William Reese Award for Outstanding Student Research

Scholarships

All eligible students will be considered for scholarships.

• Butch Boyer Scholarship
• Clinton and Patricia Chase4 Scholarship
• Lucille Hardgrove Scholarship
• Albert Whitehead Scholarship

One of our emphases is the design of visual displays to quickly and efficiently convey important information. This takes the forms of alarms, navigational displays, dynamic maps or innovative peripheral displays which use the periphery of the visual field to allow for additional information to be processed while the center of the visual field is left uncluttered. 

Display technology developed at University of Idaho has implications for the design of heads-up cockpit displays in aviation, navigational aides in modern cars or for decision support tools in process control. 

Through a unique developmental life-span perspective, faculty at University of Idaho are trying to understand the risks children face in normal traffic situations and how to improve children’s safety as traffic participants. Many other safety issues, like the use of audible cues in identifying approaching traffic, warning labels or alarm systems are being investigated. 

Through the use of neurophysiological methods, U of I faculty are trying to identify and classify levels of human workload and stress. Research in this area might lead to earlier detection and mitigation of human error. 

Psychology faculty are working on creative, new ways to enhance computer security through graphical authentication systems, improving user experiences through different types of feedback strategies and the creation of new display types. 

Psychology graduate students participate in research in a variety of specialty areas, including:

• Human-computer interaction
• Advanced displays for aviation and process control
• Simulation and virtual environments
• Driving and surface transportation
• Computer security
• Alarm technology
• Physiological indicators of stress and workload
• Sound perception
• Cyclist and pedestrian safety
• Augmented cognition and neuroergonomics
• Biofeedback and neck pain
• Balancing and aging
• Cognition and posture 

Graduate funding and research support is available for on-campus students. 

As a human subject participating in a study, you are protected by three universally accepted principles behind the conduct of such research. These are respect for persons, beneficence and justice. Thus, you have various rights which include being informed about:

• the nature of the study meaning the purpose, the methods, the data which will be collected and the level of risk involved,
• the time commitment and any compensation,
• your participation being voluntary,
• what to do should something occur unexpectedly (known as an adverse event), and
• who the investigators are and how to contact them.

You have a right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your protected health information. Your institution has a right to deny this request in accordance with 45 CFR 164.522(a).

You have a right to receive confidential communications of your protected health information as provided by 45 CFR 164.524.

You have a right to amend your protected health information as provided by 45 CFR 164.526.

You have a right to receive an accounting of disclosures of your protected health information as provided by 45 CFR 164.528.

To participate in experiments, log into Sona Systems. 

Locations: Student Health Center 016D

• 225 square feet
• Virtual reality street simulator with both displays and head mounted capability 

Location: Student Health Center 009

• 280 square feet
• 130 square feet for main lab facility but can be reconfigured.
• 150 square feet used as graduate student office and meeting space.

Equipment includes:

• 1-Wacom Cintiq 24” graphics tablet with multi-touch capability
• 2-iMac 24” personal computers
• 1-Tobii eye-tracker X2-60
• 1-Windows computer workstation running ePrime II for time-critical experiments 

Location: Forney Hall 001

• 280 square feet
• Includes a large open space equipped with an 8-camera Vicon Bonita motion capture system and the Motion Monitor integration package.
• Allows collection of three-dimensional position data from passive reflective markers on the body and allows for real time generation of a model of the human body in motion.
• 64-channel EEG system to record electrical activation from brain during activity.
• 8-channel Delsys EMG system to record electrical activation from muscles during activity.
• 8 Opal inertial sensors from APDM to record acceleration and angular velocity during activities, with Mobility Lab software for instant data analysis and Motion Studio software for custom analyses.
• The Twister: custom equipment for assessing postural tone during standing.

Location: Student Health Center203

• 193 square feet
• 4 desktop computer for data collection 

Location: Student Health Center 014

• 400 square feet

Includes analog counseling area and psychological testing space with the following equipment:

• Audio and video recording equipment
• Personal computer
• Psychological testing library 

Location: Student Health Center 005

• 195 square feet
• 3 desktop computers with external monitors for data collection, behavioral analysis, and data analysis
• Printer
• 4 Logitech web cams
• Rokoko motion capture suit 

Location: Forney Hall 001A

• 230 square feet
• Four networked high-performance workstations
• Three stations can be used for simultaneous subject testing
• Equipped with E-Prime 3.0 for psychological tests, R, and RStudio computational modeling, and SPSS for conducting statistical tests 

• Academic Support Programs
• Counseling and Mental Health Center
• Center for Disability Access and Resources (CDAR)
• Writing Center
• Career Services
• Innovation Showcase
• Three Minute Thesis

• American Psychological Association
• Association for Psychological Science
• Rocky Mountain Psychological Association
• Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
• Idaho Psychological Association
• Careers in Psychology
• Psi Chi National Honor Society and Psychology Club 

• National Communication Association
• International Communication Association
• Western States Communication Association
• International Association of Business Communication
• American Communication Association
• Communication Institute for Online Scholarship 

• International Leadership Association
• Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• National Society of Leadership and Success
• Idaho Nonprofit Center
• National Council of Nonprofits
• Careers in ORGS 

• Barry Goldwater Scholarship
• APA Scholarships, Grants and Awards
• NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates
• Preparing for the GRE
• NIH Post-Baccalaureate Programs