In 1989, in accordance with "succession" procedures described in the department Bylaws, I assumed the duties of department Chair following Mike Rashotte's term. The following six years proved to be interesting times for the department, including both challenges and opportunities. Ellen Berler, who assumed the combined duties of Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies, ably served the department in this period. In addition, Nancy Leasure (formerly Nancy Matthews), provided the needed expertise in the areas of fiscal and personnel management while Stan Warmath coordinated various facility renovations and improvements. With this administrative team and the combined efforts of many faculty and staff members, a number of accomplishments were possible

This period was also significant in that it involved the retirement of several faculty members who had played a major role in building the department in the years immediately following the establishment of Florida State University as a co-educational institution. Among the retirees were Howard Baker, Dan Kenshalo, Jack May, Kent Miller, and Barron Scarborough. In addition, Graham Oliff, for many years the senior engineer in the department's mechanical shop also retired. The difficulty in filling these vacant positions with individuals who could play a similar role for the department in the future was one of the most significant challenges during this time.

With regard to faculty hiring, replacements came quite slowly due to economic conditions that led to a hiring "freeze" in two of the six years. However, circumstances over which we had little control provided an avenue both for significant faculty recruitment and for the rapid development of the newly formed program in Cognitive and Behavioral Science (CBS). This opportunity came about by the determination that an Eminent Scholar Chair would be permanently assigned to the department. This endowed position was named for Edward Conradi, president of FSCW from 1909-1940, and was funded by the Florida State College for Women alumnae. The decision to assign the position to our department was based, in large part, on the historical research of Barron Scarborough. Barron brought to the initial endowment committee the records of Dr. Conradi's training (Ph.D. in Psychology from Clark University) research (language development) and teaching (experimental psychology, among other psychology courses). Consistent with Dr. Conradi's academic training, the department agreed to recruit a distinguished researcher in the area of human experimental psychology (cognitive psychology, broadly defined). To create an attractive recruitment package, additional College and University resources were negotiated that included commitments for additional faculty positions and additional space. The end result was selection of Anders Ericsson (then at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado), a world-renowned scholar in the field of skill acquisition and expertise. In addition, a second, senior-level recruitment was successful with the arrival of Neil Charness (then at the University of Waterloo). By the Fall of 1994, two senior and two junior faculty members had been added to the CBS area with hopes that this program could be nationally competitive in recruiting graduate students and obtaining external grant funding. As economic conditions improved, constraints on general faculty hiring were lifted resulting in the addition of five other faculty members over the time period, two in Neurosciece and three in Clinical.

With regard to facility upgrades and renovations, the digital revolution played a major role. University funds were provided to purchase a number of computers to be used in the undergraduate laboratory courses. This necessitated major re-structuring of those laboratory courses to take advantage of the software packages available. Because of a mandated asbestos-abatement project on the first floor of the Kellogg Building, the department also had the opportunity to re-align and renovate the colloquium room (now named the Daniel R. Kenshalo Lecture Hall) and simultaneously create new space for a computer laboratory and a physiology teaching laboratory. Also in 1992 both buildings and all faculty offices were connected to the university ether-net, providing high speed Internet access to everyone in the department. By 1995, local area networks combined with a number of freestanding workstations made it possible to routinely manage most departmental operations, from fiscal matters to student databases, and were also widely employed in teaching and research endeavors.

One of the most significant changes in the undergraduate program was the final approval (by the Board of Regents) of "limited access" status for psychology majors. Over a ten-year period, the number of junior/senior majors had increased by 150% (from 400 to 1000) while the number of faculty members had remained essentially unchanged. By instituting a minimum 2.6 GPA over the first two years of college work, it became possible to gain some control over the number of entering students. The immediate result was a reduction in class sizes and the end to waiting lists for required courses. In the long term, moderation in student growth will provide the opportunity for a higher quality of educational experience for our majors. Emphasis on undergraduate research was also provided by the endowment of the Howard Baker Undergraduate Research Award. This endowment provides ongoing funds for annual cash prizes to the best undergraduate research papers.