The college was originally exclusively male with explicit Christian roots.

Excerpt from course catalog: “The data which constitute the contents of these sciences, in combination with other facts in the realms of mind and material nature, furnish means of verifying the claim made by religion, and especially by Christianity, to the acceptance of mankind” (White, 2008, p. 3).

A Brief History of Women at Beloit, Beloit College Magazine

In its Brown v. Board of Education ruling, The U.S. Supreme Court cited the influential doll studies of K.B. & M.P. Clark.

Kenneth Clark went on to become the first Black president of APA (1966).

Hayward was instrumental in proposing the 1964 Beloit Plan, a bold and innovative plan to address demographic needs spurred on by the first of the baby boomers reaching college age.

“I am sure that we will recognize that there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will… And through such creative maladjustment, we may be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man, into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.” - Martin Luther King Jr

Professor Emeritus White (arrived in 1984): “Aronson’s kind of social psychology was (and still is) my kind of social psychology—a conceptually innovative, methodologically rigorous, nonpartisan approach to understanding social cognition and social influence.”

Later renamed as National Latinx Psychological Association.

Professor Zebrowski (arrived 2008, establishing the Cognitive Science program): “This is the book that broke me. I read this as an undergraduate who didn’t know if I was studying philosophy or psychology, and I realized I was studying cognitive science. That we can be rigorous and scientific up to the edges of what we can know, but that we shouldn’t shy away from asking hard theoretical questions about the nature of consciousness and thinking.”

Professor Grosofsky (arrived 1989): “This book was my introduction to realizing that the approach to perception I had learned during my undergraduate education was not the only way to think about perception. I had been (as many continue to be) indoctrinated into a theoretical perspective without it ever being acknowledged as such.”

Professor Cox (arrived 1994): “I read this book during my first year in graduate school, intrigued by the excitement developmental psychologists and clinicians shared about the ways Stern so aptly connected multiple ways of thinking about infant development. His eloquent writing bridged my undergraduate introduction to object relations theory with empirical studies of infant development, and it helped sharpen my focus of interest on parent-child interactions.”

Previously the American Psychological Society.

Professor Buchanan (arrived 1999): “As with all good stories, Yalom’s accounts of psychotherapy are gripping page-turners. These exposés of the human psyche offer much but especially hope in the face of the peculiarities of the human condition.”

The original prize honors an outstanding senior in the department; the prize is now awarded to sophomore majors who demonstrate excellence in psychology courses.

Professor Young (arrived 2020): “Like Gergen’s (1973) ‘Social Psychology as History’, this work challenges ‘general psychology’s’ assumption that the mind is a central processing unit that operates independently of social/cultural context. While providing a statement of what cultural psychology is (and is not), Shweder also reveals how mimicking the natural sciences may lead psychologists astray from their topic of study.”

Since 1996, Beloit psychology faculty have mentored dozens of McNair Scholar students on projects related to psychology or related fields. McNair Scholars are chosen for their commitment to diversify the academy and for their plans to pursue graduate studies leading to a Ph.D.

Professor Bonnie (arrived 2007): “Written by my graduate advisor and published just weeks before I began graduate school, de Waal emphasizes the importance of relationships in the process of social learning. His theories, though not universally accepted, were foundational to my own research, as well as ongoing investigations of what, when, and from whom animals learn.”

Visiting Instructor Taber (arrived 2023): “This article really struck me as it questions the norms of research and academia and specifically community partnerships. I remember community engaged projects as foundational to my education as well as my professional and personal development, but this article also questions if these experiences for our students are helpful or harmful to the communities with whom we are partnering.”

Visiting Instructor Carey (arrived 2023): “This book introduced me to the clinical value of EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, developed in 1987. Its efficacy has been demonstrated and is particularly helpful in treating cases of trauma. I have witnessed significant improvement in my clients treated with EMDR.”