WELL-BEING
PARTICIPATION IN THE PROFESSION Kudos for UTC student-led I-O Psych group By Shawn Ryan
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shton Adams started swimming when she was 4 years old. That first splash led to a love of competitive swimming that lasted until she graduated from college. Through those decades in the water, she also came to appreciate being part of a bigger whole. “I was a competitive athlete all my life, so I’ve always loved the ‘team’ aspect of groups,” Adams says. After graduating with a bachelor’s in psychology, she enrolled in the master’s program for industrial-organizational psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Immediately upon starting, she joined the Chattanooga Area I-O Psychology Professionals (CHAIOP). “My hope was that it would let me dive into I-O psychology a little bit more while providing me with a sense of camaraderie,” says Adams, now a second-year student in the program. CHAIOP was created in 2014 by graduate students and Chris Cunningham, director of the I-O psychology graduate program and a UC Foundation professor. Its members are all students in the two-year master’s program. While advised by graduate school professors, it’s 100% student-driven and student-led. “We view CHAIOP as an extra-curricular and experiential component to what our program offers for our students to develop professional competencies essential for success as I-O psychology professionals,” Cunningham says. “We believe involvement in CHAIOP—especially for members of its leadership team—is a very effective way of building mastery in these core competency areas.” CHAIOP recently was recognized by the Society of Industrial and Organization Psychology as an unusual organization in higher education. The group is not just a batch of students getting together to talk about their day or share stories over beers, the magazine noted. CHAIOP gives an inside look at I-O psychology from a working perspective, a chance to explore the day-to-day realities of students’ chosen fields. It’s an ingredient rarely seen in higher education groups around the country, the society said in a story on its website. Similar groups usually don’t include reaching out into the community to meet and collaborate with professionals. “What sets CHAIOP apart from many student organizations is its mission to reach beyond student participation and welcome professional practitioner and academic members with similar educational and professional interests,” the society wrote. “In addition to providing opportunities for meeting, learning, and networking, the group emphasizes community involvement by partnering with other professionals and organizing activities that support the greater Chattanooga area.”
Ashton Adams
6 | The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Magazine
Professional development is one of the cornerstones of the I-O Psychology program, Cunningham note, and CHAIOP fits neatly into that structure. First-year graduate students in the group are mentored by second-year students who, in turn, are mentored by I-O alumni from UTC who have spent at least five years working in their careers. Hannah Wike was a member of CHAIOP while earning a master’s in I-O psychology between 2013 and 2015. Now working in the human resources at Earnin, a financial services company in San Francisco, she is a mentor to students now in the master’s program. “I let them come to the table and ask me what they’re really interested in or how this would work in the workplace, and then I share my experiences and what I’ve learned,” she says. “Sometimes it’s really tangible advice. Sometimes these students are in their job search and want support in the interviewing process or the career-search process. “And sometimes it’s more theoretical, ‘Oh, what if I come across this in my role? How would you approach it?’ Or ‘What does chain management look like in an organization and real life? What mistakes have you made and how you learned from them?’” Along with mentoring from full-time professionals, another tool in CHAIOP’s toolbox are Spotlights, face-to-face meetings with local business executives who work in the various areas of I-O psychology such as human resources, workforce training and recruitment. The events, which range from Q&A panels to guest speakers and onsite visits to local companies, are “great at giving current students a sense of what working in particular organizations could be like,” Cunningham says. During the actual visits, students get a close-up look at a business’ goals and strategies to reach those goals. At the virtual Spotlight with TVA in fall semester 2020, Adams and other students conducted a Q&A session with UTC alumni who now work at the utility. “It was beyond helpful to hear from graduates of the program who have professional experience. They offered advice and tips we could all walk away with,” Adams says. She eventually walked away with an internship at TVA this summer. While they weren’t called Spotlights when she was at UTC, Wike said the ability to network with local companies and their leaders is one of the most valuable tools she took away from being in CHAIOP and complemented nicely with classroom work. “In the program, we were learning a lot of theoretical idea. How to implement certain things into a business,” she explaines. “With CHAIOP, because we had access to folks that were already in their industry and doing day-to-day work, I really learned more of applied experiences. What a selection process really looks like in the workplace or what kind of motivators and incentives and recognition programs actually really work in the workplace.”
