Janie Gordon

Prof. Gordon joined Georgia Southern University in 1994 and retired in 2021.

 — Biography from the 2021 Fall Commencement program —

Dr. Gordon earned degrees from the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina, where she was awarded a PhD in Biological Psychology. She began in the Georgia Southern University Department of Psychology in 1994 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001 and to Professor in 2006. At the time of her retirement, Dr. Gordon had provided Georgia Southern with 27 distinguished years of service. Throughout her career, Dr. Gordon was a committed teacher, scholar, and scholar of teaching, as much of her work involved intensive examinations of college teaching and how it might be improved. Dr. Gordon’s impact on this branch of the field is reflected by her leadership roles in coordinating the Southeastern Teaching of Psychology conference, by her selection by the American Psychological Association (APA) to co-edit Best Practices for Technology-Enhanced Teaching and Learning in Psychology, her service as a consulting editor of the APA’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology journal, her work on the advisory board for the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, and her election for a term as the President of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Dr. Gordon has also published two well-regarded textbooks on psychological statistics and research methods, as well as related ancillary guides, and has co-edited two APA volumes on teaching psychology. This work was recognized with Dr. Gordon’s selection as Georgia Southern University’s representative to the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship Program, and her reception of several major awards, including the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Georgia Southern University Award for Excellence in Contributions to Instruction, and the CLASS Ruffin Cup for contributions to the liberal arts. Dr. Gordon has published extensively in three well-developed areas, with over two dozen published reports of studies of rat neurophysiology, human self-control, and the teaching of psychology, nearly three dozen invited publications in edited volumes, and nearly 100 presentations at professional meetings. Dr. Gordon’s research has been supported by significant funding through the National Institutes of Mental Health and has been recognized with her election as a Fellow of the APA. Dr. Wilson also served Georgia Southern as a faculty senator, senate librarian, member of the Senate Executive Committee, chair of the university Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee, and Program Coordinator for the Master of Science in Experimental Psychology. For her many contributions to Georgia Southern University and to her field, Dr. Gordon has earned the title of Professor Emerita of Psychology.*