I love the senior level seminar or lab courses because you have so many opportunities to get to know your students well.  I never walk away from these courses without learning as much as my students. I like the larger lecture courses for the great challenge of maintaining student interest and attention.  It can be a bit like theatre.  There’s also the adrenaline rush of knowing that if you pull off a stellar lecture or two you can actually change lives.  Nothing gives me more pleasure than when I meet a former student who tells me that their experiences in my classroom helped them to recognize what they wanted to do for a living.  It’s a real high to have tangible evidence that you’ve reached someone that way.

What are your research or special interests?

• How virtual reality can be used to study psychology
• Wayfinding and navigation – how we find our way from one place to another
• How we form mental maps of space
• How the organization of the mind influences the buildings and cities that we build

How would you describe Waterloo students?

I think UW students are very savvy about the fact that we live in extremely uncertain times where nobody can predict how our future will be.  The environment is under duress, the old rules of economic order have been shown to not work so well, we’ve probably reached or passed Peak Oil, and at the same time, the pace of technological advance, especially information technology, is faster than it has ever been.  All of this means that the future is entirely up for grabs.  I think our students are realistic about the challenges that they will face in their lifetimes and they are filled with energy, ingenuity, resolve and optimism in trying to meet those challenges.  I think they’re here because they’re looking for the right tools to help them get the job done and I think my job is to help them find them.  As a father, I’m passionately concerned with how our future will unfold and I feel very lucky to be able to play a part in educating future generations of pioneers.

Discuss your statement: “I believe that the solutions to the world’s most important problems lie more in understanding our psychology than in advancing our technology” and how this statement relates to your research on space and place.

I’ll give you some context for that statement.  What I was thinking about specifically was the fact that, as almost everyone now agrees, the environment is in considerable peril.  Our air is dirty, our oceans are polluted, there’s no question about the reality of climate change and we’re beginning to see mass extinctions.  Under those circumstances, there’s a very strong temptation to just grit one’s teeth and hope for some kind of technological magic bullet.

What is it about human psychology that has allowed us to produce an Einstein, a Mozart, a Mother Theresa, yet not have the wit to avoid bringing the planet’s natural heritage to the brink of collapse?  Why has it taken us so long to take this seriously and why is it that we’re still so slow to act?  I think that answering those kinds of questions could bring us a long way towards some solutions to our problems, and I’m far from alone.  Everyone from the Dalai Lama to Al Gore to Tim Flannery and other leading climate specialists have argued that we already have all the technology that we need to changethe way we live, but we’re not using it.  Understanding why is a psychological problem.  This is just one particular example, though, of a more general bugaboo of mine.  We tend to wait to be saved by technology rather than to try to understand why we might need to be saved.  We’re often tempted to throw up our hands and say “ah, it’s just humannature” without thinking deeply enough about exactly what we mean by that and whether understanding our nature can lead us to happier, healthier, and more adapted styles of life.

 Give an example of how an Arts/Psych degree can be applied in solving (attempting to, or getting closer to solving) some global (or local) problems (please give an example of the problem).

In psychology, as I think is true of any arts discipline, we understand that what we’re really trying to do is to equip our students with the kit that they will need to have a satisfactory life – and by that I don’t just mean a career – though that’s obviously important – but also to be able to think about their larger role as human beings, members of a community, a nation, a planet.  Whatever discipline a student is in, they will need to know how to think critically, mount arguments both verbally and in writing, process and filter massive amounts of information, collaborate with colleagues, and make formal presentations of ideas.  I know that a psychology degree can help students to accomplish all of those things and I’m confident that the same thing is true of other departments run by my colleagues in Arts.  This isn’t to say that discipline core courses where students acquire an understanding of psychology specifically are not important.  They are.  But 20 or 30 or 40 years after our students graduate, it won’t be remembering what experiment the great Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb conducted in 1961 that will make the difference, it will be understanding how to take apart an argument based on evidence, understand and critique its content, and extract meaning from it.  I could think of all kinds of specific examples of how students I’ve known have taken their tools out into the wider world, but one of the stories I’m proudest of is of a student of mine who spent a year in my lab trying to understand how squirrels run away from predators in a park.  Now what she’s doing is collaborating with the Mayor of Waterloo to try to find ways to make the city more child-friendly and accessible.  I don’t doubt for a second that we helped equip her for this important work, but it doesn’t have much to do with squirrels!

When most people think of psychology the most common careers to come to mind are a psychologist, professor, social worker, or counselor.   How did you arrive at your current research/career, and what advice would you give to prospective students wanting to use their Arts degree in careers other than the standard professions which are most frequently attached to their degrees?

My own career is a funny example of how far one can depart from the beaten path and how long it can take to find one’s special niche.  I should begin by saying I never had any intention of being a psychologist or even of studying psychology.  As an undergraduate, I drifted from discipline to discipline to try to discover what I was really interested in.  I’m not recommending that approach – hopefully it isn’t always necessary – but I think there are some lessons to be learned from it.  For one thing, I remember being in a huge hurry to “settle down” as my dear parents used to describe it.  I was a bit anxious about how I would find my way, support myself, and find interesting things to do with my life and so I made a few jarring changes, more out ofimpatience than deliberation.  So now I tell my students to try to avoid the temptation to leap to personal conclusions.  You won’t ever have any final answers as to who you are and what you want until you are down to your last days (if then!).  So you might as well relax, enjoy the journey, listen to your innercravings because they are telling you things that you need to hear.  Take your time.

The other thing that stands out in my experience other than impatience was a desire to come up with some kind of label for myself.  What would I BE?  Would it be lawyer, doctor, computer programmer, writer?  Now when I think back to those days, I wish that I had spent more time asking what I should DO!  Rather than trying to find the first available and comfortable pigeon hole that fits, think about what’s important to you and what you enjoy doing.  It’s entirely possible (likely I think these days) that your particular unique constellation of skills, talents and preferences may suit you for a job that doesn’t exist.  Try not to let that frighten you but to think of it as an opportunity.  Invent your own role and your own job.  If you put heart and soul into it, anything can happen and it usually will.

Finally, I would also remind students that even when you’ve got your degree, found or invented a great job and you’re on your way, avoid thinking of your life as a finished product.  I can use my own life to illustrate.  After obtaining my doctorate and a good and satisfying job at Waterloo, I had a mid-career epiphany that sent me off in a number of mad directions all at once.  I’ve always been an architecture groupie, and I found a way to combine my hobby interests with my work that has resulted in what almost seems like an entirely new career for me.  I’ve published a book, found new projects, new friends and collaborators, and opportunities that I never dreamed I could have at this point in my career.  I think it happened because I took a few risks and I had some lucky breaks, but I think it happened mostly because I took the time to listen to my inner voice and to figure out what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life.  Put succinctly, the lesson here is to remember that the journey’s never complete – there is always room for growth if you’re prepared to let it happen.