A Joyful and Exhilarating Ride: An Interview with Frank J. Vattano

Abstract

Frank J. Vattano is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Emeritus University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University (CSU), his undergraduate alma mater. He earned his PhD in experimental psychology from The Ohio State University and served as Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of Denver before returning to CSU as Assistant Academic Vice-President for Instructional Services and later as Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. He returned to teaching full-time in 1987 and served as coordinator of CSU's Introduction to Psychology course, which has an annual enrollment of more than 3,000 students. He developed, along with his colleagues, the widely adopted video teaching modules The BRAIN (Vattano, Bennett, & Butler, 1997), The MIND (Vattano, Bennett, & Butler, 2000), The Social Connection (Vattano, Bolt, & Myers, 2002), and The Many Faces of Psychology (Bolt & Vattano, 2003). Vattano is a Fellow of APA Divisions 1 and 2. He earned numerous teaching awards from CSU, received the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Award, and was named Colorado Professor of the Year in 1999. In 2001, he was honored with the American Psychological Foundation Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award.

Bryan J. Dik is an assistant professor of Counseling Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Colorado State University, where he teaches vocational psychology, career assessment and counseling, personality psychology, and the psychology of religion. He received his BA from Calvin College and his PhD from the University of Minnesota. His scholarship has focused on the measurement of vocational interests, person–environment fit theories of work adjustment, and basic and applied research related to approaching work as a calling or vocation. In addition to his teaching and research endeavors, he provides clinical supervision for graduate students in counseling psychology and serves as co-advisor of CSU's chapter of Psi-Chi.