A retirement celebration for Frances K. McSweeney, vice provost for faculty affairs and the Regents Professor of Psychology, will begin 5 p.m. Friday, April 28, at the Lewis Alumni Centre.
Faculty, staff and friends are invited to join the celebration hosted by the Office of the Provost and the Department of Psychology.
McSweeney has worked at WSU for 43 years.
A native of Rochester, N.Y., McSweeney is a graduate of Smith College (Mass.) and earned a master’s and doctoral degree from Harvard University. She joined the WSU faculty in 1974 and is known for her fundamental work on behavior and reinforcement.
Her current work in psychology tries to explain why a behavior stops. She argues that habituation is a simple, common contributor to the termination of many behaviors, including biologically important behaviors such as eating.
Throughout her career, McSweeney has been recognized for her outstanding scholarship. Her research has been supported by grants from many agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, Psychonomic Society, and the Association for Behavior Analysis.
She was recognized by WSU peers for her research and teaching accomplishments by being selected to give the Distinguished Faculty Address in 1995. She is a former WSU Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and the recipient of the 2002 Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Research, Scholarship and Arts. She received the Eminent Faculty Award in 2004 and as a past chair of the Faculty Senate, she also received the Samuel H. Smith Leadership Award in 2001 and the V. Lane Rawlins Distinguished Lifetime Service Award in 2016.
On Jan. 1, 2003, she was named the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs.
Please join us in thanking McSweeney for her 43 years of service to WSU!