Faculty: Dr. Amy Hammond
Interesting Personal fact: I trained my cat, Inky, to use the toilet instead of a litter box using the things I learned as a psychology major. And that I also sing—reasonably well!
Dr. Hammond came to Centenary College in Fall 2006 from Oregon State University, Cascades Campus. Her education and life have taken her all over the United States—northern and southern California, Central Oregon, Houston, Chicago, and now, Shreveport. She has spent time in clinical psychology (working with children with ADHD), human factors psychology (warnings & risk perception), in corporate America (database manager for an architecture/engineering firm), and finally to developmental psychology (cognition & language).
What do you enjoy about Centenary?
The community—the students, the faculty, and the staff form a group that makes coming to work really fun.
What sets Centenary apart from other colleges?
The people. The fact that we are a small school allows us to get to know each other well. I like that I actually know and hang out with faculty members from other departments and the names of people on the maintenance staff. I can usually learn the names of all my students in the first week of classes and that sense of community and connection makes this place different from other places.
What makes a good professor?
You have to have both passion for and knowledge of your discipline. You have to care about students and about wanting them to learn, not just for the sake of the learning, but about why and how the knowledge and skills will help them live a happier, more productive life.
What do you like about teaching?
The students—I love seeing when students “get” an idea or explain how they saw a concept from class at work in their lives. The stuff we teach doesn’t just live in a book somewhere, it had a life before it got written down and students’ experiences can bring that information back to life.
What is your favorite class to teach and why?
This is going to sound hokey… they’re all my favorite class, but for different reasons. I love the enthusiasm of FYE students and persuading them that FYE isn’t really so bad after all. I love talking about cognitive development and how babies learn and introducing students to interesting elders from the community in my Human Growth & Development class. I get really excited about the research ideas that my Introduction to Research Methods students come up with. Each class serves an important function in the curriculum, and they’re all fun to teach in different ways.
What do you see as your role here at the college?
Making this place and our students better versions of themselves each and every day.
What is the hardest transition for high school students to make and how do you help alleviate it?
The thing I see many FYE students struggle with is that the expectations of what it means to learn have changed. Many high schools focus on memorization of material, but at Centenary, application and analysis of information becomes far more crucial. I try to prepare students for the difference and remind them at regular intervals that “they’re not in Kansas anymore.” But it takes practice, all the same, to get good at this learnin’ stuff.