Welcome colleagues, to the new and improved Psych News. I’m hoping to use this forum not only to communicate department news, but also to coordinate more generally some of the affairs of the department. My thinking is that:

• It is more efficient to post things “real time” as I learn about them rather than trying to collect and organize longer-term. There is also often an immediate nature of some communiqués.
• It allows me to assign categories (and tags) to information and items so you can focus on the things you find most relevant, as well as to find information faster when searching.
• It makes direct email less frequent and more diagnostic: A separate email is probably important, and/or eyes only.
• I can also more easily consolidate links to resources, forms, and minutes (although such access will open in Drive, Canvas, etc. and probably require authentication).
• It provides a common archive without flooding each of your inboxes

This is just a start, but I will work to refine the categories and other settings as I get into it. There are simple tools to help you get notified the way you want, set preferred categories, and such. For example, you could easily just be notified once a week about everything, as before.

I also want to point out that this is *not* intended to be a social/personal blog forum, but rather it represents the chair’s office. I will try to tag anything that might happen to come across with that nature as “Interest.”

Currently, the blog is set for public access and does not contain any sensitive information. I would prefer not to restrict access to only subscribers, but we can discuss this at some point as well.

Feedback and suggestions are of course always welcome (as comments or otherwise).