Letter to the News Editor: Farewell to Two Bright Up-and-Coming Psychology Professors

Lawrence T. Guzy, Ph. D., Contributing Writer

Farewell to two bright and up-and-coming psychology professors.

   It is a great loss to the students to have both Drs. Doreen Comerford and Kenneth Walters resign. I am saddened by their departure. They are two faculty members who offered very unique and cutting edge opportunities for our student via their respective disciplines. Dr. Comerford‘s areas of expertise are industrial organization and human factors. These areas are rarely available to undergraduates. These specialties are highly prized by industry and most colleges cannot afford salaries these individuals command. To her credit, Dr. Comerford chose her love of teaching and mentoring students. She shared research opportunities with them from her years of experience at NASA. She and her students were engaged in cutting edge research with NASA and several other research institutions and industries that focused on improving the performance of commercial pilots and increasing safety for them and their passengers. Dr. Walters’s specialty is clinical psychology. He came to Oneonta also with considerable practical experience in his chosen field. The focus of his research is on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in teenagers and adults. Last year, he and his many students produced 10 different research posters on this topic where some were presented at a psychology conference in Pennsylvania and the remainder at Student Research Day on campus (2011). At this year’s Student Research and Creative Activity Day, Dr. Walters sponsored 12 different projects, one of which won top honors (congratulations Dustin Smith). These are records that will stand the test of time. Both Drs. Comerford and Walters are phenomenal in all respects. They demonstrated to me, on numerous occasions that they are the finest lecturers that I have ever heard. Many students have shared this observation with me. Their students love them for their enthusiasm, openness and opportunities that they were presented through Dr. Comerford and Walters classroom teaching, advising and/or mentoring. In the few years that they were here, they placed a phenomenal number of our graduating seniors in top graduate programs in industrial organization, human factors, clinical and school psychology. They are a great loss to the students. I will dearly miss them.

1 Comment

  1. I think writer is absolutely right about this great loss to the students
    They must have resigned, because they were not paid a salary package that should have been adequate for them.

    The Oneida state’s loss would be gain of some other University elsewhere.

    The teaching faculty of both these Professor ‘s caliber can not be found easily. Thanks for sharing this story. My son was a Psychology major, and was an honors student, given Internationl Pshychology society;s life time membership for his scholarly achievements in this field. He wrote excellent research papers.i am real proud of my young man.

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