Psychology

The department of Psychology in Nasarawa State University was established in 2001 as one of the pioneer departments in the university. At its inception, the department had three Assistant Lecturers with Nze, Chukwuemeka Leonard as the coordinator for one academic session. Currently the department is headed by Harri Sylvester Atama.
The department was established at the inception of the university i.e. in the year 2002.
The major objective and focus of the department is to train students to acquire psychological knowledge and skills to be able to identify psychological and adjustment problems of mankind in general, and to use such knowledge, skills and techniques to manage or help people with adjustment problems as well as enhancing the lives of even the healthy. In short, special, attention is focused on teaching the application of psychological knowledge and skills on identifying and managing human problem.

1. To instill in psychology students a sense of enthusiasm for and identify with psychology as a profession, appreciation of it application in different contexts, and environment, and to involve students in an intellectually stimulating and satisfying experience of learning and studying.
2. To provide students with a broad and balanced foundation of psychological knowledge and practical skills
3. To develop in psychology students the ability to apply their psychological knowledge and skills (such as analysis of behaviors etiology, patterns, prevalence and epidemiology, using the principles of cognition, learning motivation, emotion, adjustment, conflicts, attitudes, beliefs, values intelligence, personality leadership and inter personal skills etc) in proffering solutions to theoretical and practical problems of psychology and society.
4. To develop in’ students, through an education in psychology a range of transferable skills of value in psychological social organizational, industrial educational, health and cultural employment environment, by the use of ”” cognitive and creative methods of social engineering.
5. To provide students with a knowledge and skill base from which they can proceed to further studies in specialized area of psychology (such as health, clinical IT organizational industrial – managerial, artificial intelligence social human resources management, political educational Forensic environment psychology, etc) or multi disciplinary areas involving psychology.
6. To create in students an appreciation of the important of psychology in a development third world society like Nigeria in relation to industrial, economics, environment and socio-cultural contexts issues, problems and Policies especially as they relate to existential and epistemological values, attitudes and beliefs.

The Department of Sociology accepts the challenges of the interconnectedness of the global system, and envisions a world, where new ways of behaviour based on new perceptions and concepts about humankind, theory and practice, and global interdependence and new methods of evaluating and assimilating knowledge are required.

Therefore, the Department, in offering courses to students seeking to obtain the Bachelor and Master of Science Degree in Sociology, expresses an overall intention which aims to educate social science graduates for maximum flexibility; and to enable graduates to acquire a level of sophistication in communication and critical thinking skills for use in interpreting social phenomena in an increasingly globalized world and to analyze, synthesize and evaluate sociological knowledge of the dynamic interplay of gender, ethnicity, age, urbanization, development, crime, labour and class in society and the world, and to acquire the requisite skills to analytically communicate such knowledge.

Additional, the Department requires that its graduates (1) develop an international sociological imagination; (2) rigorously conceptualize and passionately interpret the transformative powers of social history on the affairs of humankind; and (3) evolve new, articulated and sophisticated theoretical perspective as basis for hypothesizing about contemporary rural/urban living, national and international social problems, social change, gender, ethnic; class; age stratification; cultural differences; and the complexities of global interdependence. The Department’s curriculum consists of core and elective courses which are aimed at teaching skills of observing, computing, and writing that are required in order to interpret national and international public issues of structure, and/or to conduct independent social science research in areas that are of particular interest.