Sathasivian Cooper

Last updated

Sathasivan Cooper
Born (1950-06-11) 11 June 1950 (age 73)
Durban, South Africa
Education University of South Africa
University of the Witwatersrand
Boston University
Known forPart of the SASO Nine

Sathasivan "Saths" Cooper (born 11 June 1950) is a clinical psychologist in South Africa who was born in Durban of Indian-South African background. He began to identify with the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and joined the South African Students' Organisation (SASO), and was one of the so-called "SASO Nine" student leaders arrested in 1974 for their anti-Apartheid activities. [1] During this time Saths spent nine years banned, house arrested and jailed, including over five years in Robben Island where he shared a cell block with Nelson Mandela. [2] [3]

Contents

While imprisoned, Cooper completed his undergraduate degree in psychology via a correspondence course with the University of South Africa. [1] Released in 1982 Cooper went on to study at the University of the Witwatersrand completing his PhD as a Fulbright scholar at Boston University. [1] He was four times elected President of the Psychological Society of South Africa, and was Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Durban-Westville (prior to its merger). [2] He served as President of the International Congress of Psychology which was held in 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. At the Congress, Cooper was elected the first African President of the International Union of Psychological Science (IUPsyS), a kind of United Nations for 90 national psychology organizations and over 20 regional organizations. [4]

Background

Cooper was born in a rural area outside Durban, South Africa where his parents ran a local school. He grew up understanding and using multiple languages including Zulu, Tamil, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and English. [5] Cooper became politically active in high school and continued to be politically active throughout college, which may have resulted in his expulsion from the University College, Salisbury Island, Durban as well as the South African government denying him a passport to attend university in Britain. [5] As a leader of the Natal Indian Congress, Cooper had frequent meetings with Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, and encouraged Indian activists to participate in this movement. [5]

Contributions to Psychology

Cooper's most significant contributions to psychology was to help[ how? ] South Africans heal from the trauma of apartheid, advance human rights, and support democracy. [5] He also helped to create the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA), which was South Africa's first psychology organization that did not discriminate based on race or gender. [5]

Roles [6]

Honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Biko</span> South African anti-apartheid activist (1946–1977)

Bantu Stephen Biko OMSG was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Psychological Association</span> Scientific and professional organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C.

The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 157,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It has 54 divisions—interest groups for different subspecialties of psychology or topical areas. The APA has an annual budget of around $125 million.

The Black People's Convention (BPC) was a national coordinating body for the Black Consciousness movement of South Africa. Envisaged as a broad-based counterpart to the South African Students' Organisation, the BPC was active in organising resistance to apartheid from its establishment in 1972 until it was banned in late 1977.

The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress leadership after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960. The BCM represented a social movement for political consciousness.

[Black Consciousness'] origins were deeply rooted in Christianity. In 1966, the Anglican Church under the incumbent, Archbishop Robert Selby Taylor, convened a meeting which later on led to the foundation of the University Christian Movement (UCM). This was to become the vehicle for Black Consciousness.

The South African Students' Organisation (SASO) was a body of black South African university students who resisted apartheid through non-violent political action. The organisation was formed in 1969 under the leadership of Steve Biko and Barney Pityana and made vital contributions to the ideology and political leadership of the Black Consciousness Movement. It was banned by the South African government in October 1977, as part of the repressive state response to the Soweto uprising.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mahzarin Banaji</span> Indian social psychologist (born 1959)

Mahzarin Rustum Banaji FBA is an American psychologist of Indian origin at Harvard University, known for her work popularizing the concept of implicit bias in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and other factors.

Rodney L. Lowman is an American psychologist, academic administrator and entrepreneur whose major contributions have been in the areas of career assessment and counseling, ethical issues in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the integration of clinical psychology and I-O psychology and helping to develop the field of consulting psychology. In a study of the most prolific contributors to the Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Lowman was rated the second highest contributor for articles for the period 1992–2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South African Students Congress</span> Political party in South Africa

The South African Students Congress (SASCO) is a South African student organisation currently led by Athenkosi Mabona as the organization's President. SASCO was founded in September 1991 at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, through the merger of the South African National Student Congress (SANSCO) and the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). The predecessor of SANSCO, the Azanian Students Organisation (AZASO) was initially formed in 1979 as a continuation of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) when the latter was banned by the Apartheid government. SASO, in turn, got started by Steve Biko as a breakaway faction from NUSAS in the 1960s.

Norman Bruce Anderson is an American scientist who was a tenured professor studying health disparities and mind/body health, and later an executive in government, non-profit, university sectors. Anderson is assistant vice president for research and academic affairs, and research professor of social work and nursing at Florida State University. He previously served as chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association (APA), the largest scientific and professional association for psychologists in the United States. Anderson became the APA's first African-American CEO when he was named to the post in 2003. He was the editor for the APA journal American Psychologist. Prior to joining APA, Anderson was an associate director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and held other roles in academia.

Wilbert James "Bill" McKeachie was an American psychologist. He served as president of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Foundation and the American Association of Higher Education. He was a longtime faculty member at the University of Michigan and the initial author of McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers, a widely read book on college teaching that was first published in 1951 and more recently in its 14th edition in 2013.

The American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology is awarded for "distinguished and enduring lifetime contributions to the international cooperation and advancement of knowledge in psychology."

Patrick Henry (Pat) DeLeon is an American psychologist, former chief of staff for United States Senator Daniel Inouye and past president of the American Psychological Association (APA). He became an aide for Senator Inouye in 1973, when Inouye served on a committee investigating the Watergate scandal, and remained on the senator's staff for 38 years. After DeLeon's daughter survived meningitis in 1984, he was involved in the establishment of the Emergency Medical Services for Children program. DeLeon helped to create the nursing and pharmacy schools at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.

Merry Bullock, is an American psychologist. She studied at Brown University for her BA and University of Pennsylvania for her PhD, both in psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Denmark</span> American psychologist

Florence Harriet Levin Denmark is an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association (APA) (1980-1981). She is a pioneering female psychologist who has influenced the psychological sciences through her scholarly and academic accomplishments in both psychology and feminist movements. She has contributed to psychology in several ways, specifically in the field of psychology of women and human rights, both nationally and internationally.

Mathilda Bushel Canter was an American psychologist and leader in state and national psychological organizations. Known as the "First Lady of Arizona Psychology" for her service to her state board and state association of psychology, she was the first female president of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division of Psychotherapy. She won multiple national awards for career achievement in psychological practice.

Winnie Motlalepula Kgware was a South African anti-Apartheid activist within the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). She was elected as the first president of the Black People's Convention (BPC), a BCM-affiliated community-based organisation in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances K. Graham</span> American psychologist

Frances K. Graham was an American psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware, where she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

The SASO/BPC trial, also known as the Black Consciousness trial, was an apartheid-era legal trial in South Africa which resulted in the conviction of nine Black Consciousness activists from the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) and Black People's Convention (BPC). The trial ran from 31 January 1975 to 21 December 1976 in the Pretoria Supreme Court.

Pandelani Jeremia Nefolovhodwe is a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist who served as deputy president of the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) from 1992 to 2010. He represented the party in the National Assembly from 2002 to 2009 and was formerly its president from 1990 to 1992.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dingfelder, Sadie (April 2013). "APA bio". APA. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 "Honorary Fellowship Awarded". BPS. 26 June 2013. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  3. ↑ "SA History - Sathasivan Cooper". 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  4. ↑ Rich, G. J., & Kuriansky, J. (2015). Saths Cooper: Post-Apartheid Psychologists, Activist, and Leader in South Africa and Beyond. In G. J. Rich & U. P. Gielen (Eds.). (2015). Pathfinders in international psychology, (pp. 241-255). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Rich, Grant (2015). Pathfinders in International Psychology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. pp. 241–255. ISBN   9781681231433.
  6. ↑ "Sathasivan ('Saths') Cooper: Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology". American Psychologist. 69 (8): 835–837. 2014. doi:10.1037/a0037568. PMID   25486172.
  7. ↑ "Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of International Psychology Award". APA. 2015. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 "IUPsyS award release". IUPsyS. 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  9. ↑ "NAOP fellowship". NAOP. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  10. ↑ "Psychological Society of SA Fellowship" (PDF). 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.