Geraldine L. Palmer, Ph.D.

Overview

My teaching philosophy is grounded in my personal belief in equitable spaces, where diversity in all its facets is celebrated, not tolerated. In my classroom, students’ “exit tickets” after a class or semester are not only passing summative assessment measures to determine learning outcomes. What’s equally important is if I know they are beginning to see and navigate life through different or expanded lenses, centering on social and racial justice. This paradigm shift does not necessarily change what they see, but rather my hope is that the students create spaces for change by seeing more of a person’s humanity. My hope is also that their worldviews are influenced by understanding the social construction of differences, what those differences mean, and how people experience those differences. This means that students are learning, developing critical consciousness, and holding space for difference.

As a community psychologist, of which Alfred Adler is noted as the first community psychologist, I encourage students to apply psychology from an ecological approach, as individuals are members of a community and therefore shape and are shaped and influenced by others. Thus, from the micro to the macro level, environment and settings matter to an individual’s overall health and well-being.

My research interests and community praxis are centered on better understanding historical or intergenerational trauma, particularly among African Americans, ways of healing and restoring communities, decoloniality and liberation movements, housing and homelessness correlations, and all things relative to the biopsychosocial and cultural well-being of BIPOC.