Former Department Chair and long-time valued colleague transitions to “Professor Emeritus” status.
The Department of Clinical and Health Psychology celebrates the many accomplishments of Ronald H. Rozensky, Ph.D, A.B.P.P., who is retiring from the University of Florida. Dr. Rozensky’s accomplishments and contributions have been substantial, and have been documented throughout these “news” pages. For a brief summary, please see Dr. Rozensky’s profile page and c.v. here.
A portion of Dr. Rozensky’s announcement is copied below. We look forward to our continued association with Dr. Rozensky, and his many anticipated contributions to our field.
“Dear Friends,
Today is my official UF retirement day. I want to thank the Faculty and Dean for appointing me as Professor Emeritus. This will permit me to keep my ongoing affiliation with the University, allow me to use that affiliation on several upcoming articles, chapters, and talks – and then on my work into the future. Emeritus status also will allow me to keep my email address and even permit me pay for parking and sporting events at the usual rates :- ).
As I said in my retirement announcement last year, my affiliation with CHP for the past almost twenty years has been a very meaningful, productive, and fulfilling part of my career. Being department chair and Associate Dean proved me the opportunity to help our department grow. We clarified our mission, moved to new facilities, reached out internationally, enhanced our national reputation, broadened our clinical footprint in the Health Science Center, established a clinical faculty, and markedly increased our grant funding. During that time we brought in many new faculty members to the department (almost doubling our size) – and I then had the pleasure to watch as they each went on to very productive careers at UF and beyond.
My time with students in the classroom, clinic, and supervision remain my proudest accomplishment. We all should remember that faculty publications, grants, and national and local service activities are the necessary distractions that occur when carrying out the department’s true, primary mission – education and training. The productivity of our students, both while here at UF and then throughout their careers, are the true measures of a great faculty and department. And CHP clearly has succeeded in that mission! I continue to hope that building the future through our students will remain as the prime directive.
CHP always has had a unique place in the world of health service psychology as one of the very few, free standing departments of clinical psychology. That uniqueness continues today and includes both health science centers and liberal arts & science environments where clinical programs are always nested in other departments. We also are a role model for offering major areas of study to students, interns, and post docs across several of APA’s recognized specialties (Health, Neuro, & Child). This also includes providing formal learning experiences for all of our trainees across those same specialties as part of our core education and training. Our faculty members live the science and practice of those areas daily and combine those in all the education, practice, and scientific work they do. Maintaining that balance is time consuming – but makes for the strength of our department and the quality learning opportunities for our students.
The range of interprofessional education, clinical services, and team science opportunities available to our students here at UF is truly unique; it is this wide range of learning opportunities that are sought after by the best and the brightest students in our field. As I often remind students when going out to “compete” for internship positions; you have functioned in an interprofessional environment from day one of your graduate education, and then on a day-to-day basis for several years. You now are competing with students who are excited just to describe their practicum and how they have spent their Thursdays, for the last year, “down the street,” at the local hospital – when you’ve done it every day! Being able to master the personal competencies of a psychologist, learning the competencies of other disciplines, the competencies of being a team player, and the skills that make for a competent healthcare or scientific team are what modern healthcare, and clinical science, are all about. Enjoy those experiences, catalogue them, use them, and describe them in detail when seeking your internship, your post doc, and your first, or next, job. While successfully functioning interprofessionally since our inception, I hope the department, and each of you, continues to be proud of, and maintain, the clinical and administrative autonomy we have built and that CHP has enjoyed as the foundation of our programs.
With the interprofessional expectations of the Affordable Care Act, now is the time for each psychologist to take a leadership role on the healthcare team while enhancing their own specialties skills. But, do not specialize too early. Without the broad and general knowledge of a true clinical psychologist –psychopathology, psychometrics, assessment, psychotherapy, psychophysiology, program evaluation, –including the true core curriculum of learning, motivation, perception, cognition, social psych, (normal) development, and design and statistics – without that basic knowledge-set, and its application to the lab and clinic – specialization too soon makes one more of a technician than an applied scholar. Take the time to make certain your psychological roots are deep. Only then will the quality of the fruits of your specialty training be realized.
I remain available, as I have been during this past year, and all my time at UF, to discuss or consult on any project, administrative issue, or clinical problem – and I will have some extra time starting on Friday morning! I am happy to lend a hand with information I have gleaned from my national work at APA, with other organizations, and with HRSA, regarding health policy, education policy, interprofessional education, accreditation, specialization, advocacy, and the various combinations of those endeavors.
Again, thank you all for the opportunities and friendships I have enjoyed here at UF. I look forward to seeing you all, both on campus and at national meetings. And, I look forward to continuing my own writing and my national involvement in helping to build the best future we can build for psychology,
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Ronald H. Rozensky, Ph.D., A.B.P.P
Professor Emeritus
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology
University of Florida