Richard C. Atkinson | |
---|---|
17thPresident of the University of California | |
In office 1995–2003 | |
Preceded by | Jack W. Peltason |
Succeeded by | Robert C. Dynes |
FifthChancellor of the University of California San Diego | |
In office 1980–1995 | |
Preceded by | William D. McElroy |
Succeeded by | Robert C. Dynes |
5thDirector of the National Science Foundation | |
In office 1977–1980 | |
President | Jimmy Carter |
Preceded by | Guyford Stever |
Succeeded by | John Brooks Slaughter |
Personal details | |
Born | Richard Chatham Atkinson March 19,1929 Oak Park,Illinois,U.S. |
Spouse | Rita Atkinson |
Alma mater | University of Chicago Indiana University |
Profession | Psychologist and cognitive scientist,professor,administrator |
Institutions | Stanford University UC San Diego University of California |
Awards | E. L. Thorndike Award (1980) Revelle Medal (1995) [1] APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology (2002) Clark Kerr Award (2018) |
Academic background | |
Thesis | An analysis of rote serial position effects in terms of a statistical model (1955) |
Doctoral advisor | Cletus J. Burke |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Stanford University UC San Diego University of California |
Doctoral students | Richard Shiffrin |
Richard Chatham Atkinson [2] (born March 19,1929) is an American professor of psychology and cognitive science and an academic administrator. [3] He is president emeritus of the University of California system,former chancellor of the University of California,San Diego,and former director of the National Science Foundation. [4] [5]
Atkinson began his academic career during the 1960s as a professor of psychology at Stanford University,where he worked with Patrick Suppes on experiments to use computers for teaching math and reading to young children in Palo Alto elementary schools. [6] In 1975,Atkinson's career transitioned from research to administration when he was appointed as Director of the National Science Foundation. He later served as Chancellor of the University of California San Diego,and President of the University of California system. [7]
Atkinson is recognized for his scientific,academic,and administrative accomplishments. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences,the National Academy of Medicine,the National Academy of Education (NAEd),the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,former chair of the Association of American Universities and the recipient of many honorary degrees. Named in his honor are a mountain in Antarctica,and Atkinson Hall,the home of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at UC San Diego. [7]
After earning his bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in experimental psychology and mathematics at Indiana University Bloomington, [8] Atkinson joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1956. Except for a three-year interval at UCLA,he served as professor of psychology at Stanford from 1956 to 1975. His research on mathematical models of human memory and cognition led to additional appointments in the School of Engineering,the School of Education,the Applied Mathematics and Statistics Laboratories,and the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences. [7]
Atkinson was nominated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to be director of the National Science Foundation (1975–1980). [9] He made history by negotiating the first memorandum of understanding between the United States and the People's Republic of China,which opened the door for major scientific and academic exchanges between the two nations. [7]
Recognizing that research grant clustering among America's top universities negatively impacted the NSF's ability to gain broad-based support in Congress,Atkinson initiated a program called the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (known today as the "Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research"). The program aimed to broaden the geographical distribution of research grants by providing universities in states that received few research grants with advice to help them develop more competitive grant applications. [7]
When Atkinson left NSF in 1980,he became chancellor of the University of California,San Diego (UCSD). During his 15-year tenure as chancellor,he led the university through its biggest growth period and UCSD rose to "top five" status in acquiring federal research funding. [7] Atkinson encouraged technology transfer and active involvement with industry;especially with small,high-technology companies,such as Bien Logic,that were forming around San Diego in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1985,the UC San Diego Extension began running the self-sustaining UCSD CONNECT program. It was successful in helping aspiring entrepreneurs in high-technology fields find information,funding,and practical support for crucial projects such as business plan development,marketing,and attracting capital. It was an advocate on public policy issues that affected business. UC San Diego's faculty,research,and commitment to industry-university partnerships were major factors in transforming the San Diego region into a world leader in technology-based industries. Atkinson's role in this transformation was noted in a recent study of research universities and their impact on the genesis of high-technology centers. [10]
In 1995,Atkinson became the University of California system's 17th president,a position he held until 2003. During this period,Atkinson initiated national reforms in college admissions testing and spearheaded new approaches to admissions and outreach in the post-affirmative action era. [7]
Atkinson's early years at UCSD were rocked by a scandal when a former Harvard instructor,Lee H. Perry,represented by attorney Marvin Mitchelson,sued him in San Diego Superior Court. [11] Perry claimed that she had an intimate relationship with Atkinson for about a year,which resulted in a pregnancy. Although Perry wanted the baby,she stated that Atkinson persuaded her to get an abortion,promising that he would impregnate her again at a more convenient time in the next year. After that promise had not been fulfilled,Perry decided to bring suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress,fraud,and deceit.
Atkinson denied everything. Before trial,the Superior Court granted Atkinson's motion for summary judgment on the fraud and deceit claim as initially filed,and his demurrer to the claim as amended. In 1986,the case proceeded to trial on the emotional distress claim. After three days,Atkinson settled for $250,000 [12] without admitting liability,but Perry reserved the right to appeal on the fraud and deceit claim. On September 25,1987,the Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal of that claim. The Supreme Court of California denied Perry's petition for review on January 7,1988,which effectively ended the case. [13]
In 2005,the unnamed Sixth College at UCSD moved to name the college in his honor. Around April 27,2005,UCSD students were notified that Atkinson had withdrawn his name from further consideration as the future namesake of Sixth College. The decision was an abrupt surprise as Atkinson only a week earlier had told The San Diego Union-Tribune he would be "honored if the name were approved". [14]
Atkinson met his future wife Rita,a psychologist,while attending Indiana University. They were married until her death on Christmas Day,2020. [15]
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, the system is composed of its ten campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz, along with numerous research centers and academic centers abroad. The system is the state's land-grant university.
The University of California, San Diego is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is the southernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California. It offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling 33,096 undergraduate and 9,872 graduate students, with the second largest student housing capacity in the nation. The university occupies 2,178 acres (881 ha) near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres (466 ha).
Donald Arthur Norman is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego. He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science, and has shaped the development of the field of cognitive systems engineering. He is a co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, along with Jakob Nielsen. He is also an IDEO fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. He also holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego. Norman is an active Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he spends two months a year teaching.
Sixth College is the sixth and third-newest college of the University of California, San Diego. It was established in September 2001. Sixth College's core writing program, Culture, Art and Technology (CAT), is a five-course sequence that integrates writing skills into multidisciplinary classes to examine the intersections of culture, art, and technology.
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Richard Shiffrin is an American psychologist, professor of cognitive science in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington. Shiffrin has contributed a number of theories of attention and memory to the field of psychology. He co-authored the Atkinson–Shiffrin model of memory in 1968 with Richard Atkinson, who was his academic adviser at the time. In 1977, he published a theory of attention with Walter Schneider. With Jeroen G.W. Raaijmakers in 1980, Shiffrin published the Search of Associative Memory (SAM) model, which has served as the standard model of recall for cognitive psychologists well into the 2000s. He extended the SAM model with the Retrieving Effectively From Memory (REM) model in 1997 with Mark Steyvers.
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