The University of Guelph is accessible within a sixty minute drive west of Toronto and is located in a small attractive university city of about 118,000 people. The main University campus is set within a 330-hectare (817-acre) site featuring a mixture of modern and traditional buildings, including brick walkways and landscaped plazas. The university dates from 1874 when it was a School of Agriculture, later joined by the MacDonald Institute focussing on domestic sciences and arts. In 1922 the Ontario Veterinary College joined the University. Charter status as a university was gained under the Ontario Ministry of Health Training, College and University Act and Ontario College of Graduate Studies Act on May 8, 1964.
The main campus consists of six Colleges (Arts, Biological Science, Physical and Engineering Science, Social and Applied Human Sciences, Ontario Agricultural College and Ontario Veterinary College). In addition, the University of Guelph has several regional campuses, the University of Guelph-Humber and three regional Colleges and research stations associated with the Ontario Agricultural College. The University of Guelph-Humber houses Faculties of Management Studies, Environmental Sciences, and the Office of Open Learning. Approximately 15,400 full-time undergraduate and 2,100 full-time graduate students are registered in courses on the main Guelph campus, based on Fall 2007 enrollments. For these programmes, there are over 800 faculty and over 2000 staff members (see http://www.uoguelph.ca/info/facts/ ).
"The University of Guelph is among Canada's most research-intensive universities and rated the most research intensive comprehensive Canadian university. Guelph is among the most successful universities in attracting research funding from the country's federal research granting councils. In 2006-07, Guelph was awarded in excess of $3.0M from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). University of Guelph faculty were significantly more successful in competing for SSHRC awards and funding compared to the national average for comprehensive universities. Guelph's per capita funding exceeded the national average by 42%."
"University of Guelph faculty were significantly more successful in competing for NSERC/CIHR awards and funding compared to the national average for comprehensive universities. Guelph's per capita funding exceeded the national average by 30%. U of G graduate students are more successful than those of most Canadian universities in securing funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In addition, Guelph graduates are more successful than their provincial counterparts in attracting Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS)."(For more details see: http://www.uoguelph.ca/info/facts/research.shtml .)The Department of Psychology is part of the College of Social and Applied Human Science and has 33 full-time faculty. Faculty offices are located on the 3rd and 4th floor of a new extension of the McKinnon Building, into which the Department moved in January 2006,as well as the 5th floor of the wing in which it was previously housed. Research laboratories are distributed across the McKinnon Building, Blackwood Hall, and the Central Animal Facility.
The department offers undergraduate honours programs leading to a B.A., B.Sc. or B.Comm. degree. The M.A. and Ph.D. graduate programs provide specialization in Applied Cognitive Science, Applied Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology: Applied Developmental Emphasis, and Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Approximately 15-20 students are admitted to the graduate programs annually. Presently there are 35 full time faculty and 109 graduate students (33 MA, 76 PhD; Fall, 2011 enrollments), 41 (14 MA, 27 PhD) of whom are in the Clinical Psychology: Applied Developmental (CP:ADE) program. Recent graduates from those programs have assumed academic positions in universities across Canada, as well as research and consulting positions in business, social service agencies and hospitals. All programs foster an appreciation of psychology as a science and the practice of psychology in accordance with the highest professional standards.
Teaching facilities for the Psychology Department are located in the MacKinnon building and Blackwood Hall. One way mirrors for observing students engaged in assessment and therapeutic work are in the Centre for Psychological Services.
A vast collection of psychology and related social science material is available through the McLaughlin Library on campus. This 275,000 square foot facility currently houses over 2 million volumes and a wide selection hard copy and on- line journals. Students also have access to 30,000 volumes at the nearby Veterinary Science Library and can request items from the 104,000 plus volumes in off-campus storage.
The University of Guelph is a member of the Tri-University Group of Libraries (TUG) composed of the University of Guelph, University of Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier University. TUG has a common electronic catalogue to allow access to and delivery of materials from each location. Laptops can be borrowed for a two hour loan period.
Faculty research laboratories are located typically within the MacKinnon building and in Blackwood Hall.
The Child Care & Learning Centre on campus has as one of its mandates the support of research and teaching and has served as a regular site for students practicing preschool assessments as part of PSYC*6690 and conducting research.
Two one way observational facilities are also available on campus. One is located in the facilities of Family Relations and Human Nutrition has a living room-type arrangement and is suitable for accommodating interactions involving movement or several people, as well as interviewing and discussion. The Centre for Psychological Services also has one way mirrors in rooms typically used for psychological assessment and therapy.
The Department of Psychology owns a large collection of clinical instruments for assessing children and adolescents. The collection includes numerous instruments with current norms spanning rating scales of adaptive behaviour, achievement batteries, specialized achievement tests, intelligence batteries, specialized tests of cognitive functioning; tests of language and phonological processing; projective instruments; broad based personality inventories; specialized personality questionnaires, and tests of perceptual motor functioning. It also includes older tests and older versions of current instruments as archival material for reference. As well, The Centre for Psychological services holds a set of assessment instruments, some of which overlap and others of which are unique to its collection. Items in each collection are shared in the training of students in the CP:ADE program allowing for most major assessment instruments to be available.
Graduate students are provided with desks and access to a workstation in the MacKinnon building or Blackwood Hall. The MacKinnon Building (Room 118) and Blackwood Hall (Rooms 105) house graduate students with computers. Standard software in the department network includes Netscape, SPSS, AMOS, LISREL, Corel, and Microsoft Office.
The Centre for Psychological Services (1,904 square feet) is located in Blackwood Hall. The clinic operates as a fee-for-service agency affiliated with CP:ADE. The Centre provides psychological services to Guelph and the surrounding community. Serving primarily children, adolescents, and families, the Centre offers assessment and diagnosis of learning, attention, behavioural and emotional problems; treatment for anxiety, depression, and other psychological and adjustment difficulties for children and adolescents; and consultation to individuals, families, schools, and other community agencies. All CP:ADE students are required to complete an internship, with the expectation that it be located at an accredited site. Internship sites are all located outside of Guelph. The Centre for Psychological Services does not offer an internship.
Computing facilities are located in the MacKinnon Building and Blackwood Hall. The Department owns a large number of computers distributed across graduate student offices and faculty research labs. Technical and computing support is provided both by Department operations and technical support staff. Additionally, the Communications and Computing Services Department provides extensive support for statistical advising, software purchases, and web-site development.
Assistance is available within the Department to provide statistical expertise to students and faculty. There is also a Statistics Help Line offered through computing services. The university and department has site licenses for all the standard statistical packages (SAS, BMDP, SPSS, LISREL, etc)
The university has an Audio-Visual Department that provides recording equipment to faculty and students. The Psychology Department also has a variety of such equipment available on a more limited basis (e.g., audio recorders, digital recorders).
The department has an electronic and mechanical workshop, staffed by two computer/electronic technicians. More extensive or alternate support for research (e.g., building specific devices for a study) can be contracted through departments on campus (e.g., Physical Resources, Engineering, etc).
Departments on campus provide support for students with disabilities (e.g., First Year Studies, Centre for Students with Disabilities, etc) providing such services as note taking, transcription, test on tape, Kurzweil readers, voice recognition software, and other assistive technologies. Wheelchair ramps are present on all buildings, including a new ramp leading our Centre for Psychological Services (CPS).