Empire State University Recognizes Rochester Psychology Professor Kelly Cattron

Empire State University awarded Kelly Cattron, associate department chair in the Department of Psychology and Human Development, the James William and Mary Elizabeth Hall Award for Innovation for helping to expand and enhance the university’s psychology program with the use of technology and creative planning. Cattron is located at Empire State University’s Rochester site.

The Hall Innovation Award was established in 2008 by SUNY Empire founding president Jim Hall and his wife Liz to recognize university employees who create or put into effect innovations that advance the mission of the university for the benefit of students. 

Since the bachelor’s in psychology program launched in 2019, Cattron has been at the forefront of its expansion, largely by embracing cutting edge technologies and adding courses. As a result of her efforts, the program has grown significantly, debuting with 155 enrollments in the 2019-20 academic year and now 1,105 in the current year.  

“Kelly was actively engaged with all involved parties on a consistent basis, and she embraced all opportunities to strengthen and expand the program,” said Margaret Clark-Plaskie, Ph.D., chair of the Psychology & Human Development Department.  

Cattron was quick to adopt a new AI technology and encouraged other faculty and adjuncts to do the same. The technology provided constructive feedback to students, encouraged deeper learning and research, and improved the students’ writing skills. It also enabled an increase in class sizes without jeopardizing academic quality.  

“It was a wonderful program,” she says. “Before students even thought of submitting a paper, it was giving them feedback as they were writing, like ‘You should really source this,’ or ‘There’s a grammatical error.’ It was more of a participation-based thing, and the quality of work improved.” 

Cattron also adopted a “carousel” model of course planning that enabled students to jump in at any point in their academic career, making it easier for them to finish their degree in two years, regardless of the number of credits they had when they started. 

In addition to the Hall award, Cattron was recently recognized as a SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador for her positive contributions to online teaching in SUNY.