Kathryn Weinland

I am a Teaching Associate Professor of Psychology at Oklahoma State University, where I am ending my 15th year of teaching. I am one of the career track faculty members at the university, and I have always just really loved direct contact with students and being in the classroom as much as I can. I originally worked in the College of Engineering here at OSU as an academic advisor and as the coordinator of prospective student services, and I just loved getting to know our college students. When I finished my PhD, I knew I wanted to stay in the classroom somehow, and an opportunity opened up for me to join the faculty in the psychology department, and I have been there ever since. I absolutely love our students. I get to coordinate our Living Learning program, which I started and this is our fifth year to do it. I'm a real big believer of educating the whole person - a lot of learning at a university happens outside the classroom. It's also my heart as a teacher to meet students where they are, sometimes emotionally, sometimes mentally. For the Living Learning Program, we're actually going where they live and giving our first-year students a community of scholars and of friends, so that when they start at the university, they have a built-in friend group already. I also coordinate our Introduction to Psychology courses, so I get to supervise graduate students and mentor them. I'm also a faculty fellow for the Hargis Leadership Institute, and I work on leadership curriculum across campus. Additionally, I coordinate a program of volunteer faculty and graduate students, and we teach high school education courses at our local jail, the Payne County Detention Center. Sometimes I'll spend some time at the jail teaching to people who are incarcerated, which happens maybe once a month or so. Teaching comes very naturally to me - I come from a really long line of teachers. My grandpa was an education administrator for middle schools, my beloved Nana taught 5th grade for a really long time, and my sister is a teacher. When I think about a legacy or making sure that my efforts matter, I really don't have to look any farther than our students, because they are just amazing and accomplishing so much. It's really humbling to get to have a really small piece of that for them.