Lynette Jacobs-Priebe, Ph.D.

Courses Regularly Taught:  Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods, Research Seminar, Social Psychology, Women and Society, and Psychology Faith and Ethics.

Interests: Lynette describes herself as a community psychologist (one who is interested in individual, group, and community well being).  She defines the approach as a community psychologist as one who looks at individual group and social problems with multiple levels of analysis and with a particular set of values.  These values include respect for diversity, an emphasis on strengths and competencies, empowerment, and a sense of community.  Also, community psychologists use an ecological perspective, which means paying attention not just to people and their individual family problems, but also the context in which people and families live.  Examining the relationship between the person and the environment (social and physical) can help generate solutions to problems.  Other research interests include feminist pedagogy and GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) issues in educational and religious settings.

Recent Activities:  Lynette has been involved with many different types of research.  She has worked as a research assistant at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where she collected and analyzed data from experiments with people with addictions to nicotine.  Also, she has done a number of survey research projects and has experience with qualitative methods, including conducting focus groups and telephone interviews with case workers in a human services organization.  Recently Lynette completed her Ph.D. in Community Research and Action at Vanderbilt University.  Her dissertation research was on the social norms approach to preventing violence against women on college campuses.  Research for this included on-line survey data from random samples of undergraduate students at five universities and interview data from three representatives from four of those universities.  Also included was a content analysis of the primary student newspaper at each of the five universities. 

 

e-mail: jacobs-priebel@bluffton.edu