How a freshman gets interested in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology
Iyanla Lewis UA’29 and Jim Stellar
We met in a freshman seminar in the fall of 2025 and connected. Now we have a mentor-mentee relationship, just in time for her to get interested in a subfield of psychology.
That is true, I (IL) got interested in I/O psych ever since high school. I remember growing up always thinking that I would go into education just like my mom. I always looked up to her and wanted to follow in her footsteps. But when I got into high school, I thought “high school students are scary “, and decided I would never pursue that. I remember going to my mom feeling ashamed that I didn’t have an idea of what I wanted to do. She asked me, “What is something that brings me joy?” As a simple teenage girl, I shallowly answered, “Helping people”. Looking back, I can now say that this is a sentiment I still carry to this day. This response could have led me to a plethora of jobs, but one job that piqued my interest while career searching was Psychology. I believe what caught my attention during that time was the idea of applying my listening and problem-solving skills to help others work out the problems in their lives. But later, taking psychology in tenth grade showed me a broader perspective of psychology, as I saw the different parts of psychology. From the study of the brain to the study of human behavior, I learned that the field served more than just problem-solving.
I/O psychology is not my (JS) field, but it is a good presence in our UAlbany psychology department, and I understand well the idea of applying psychological principles to organizations. After starting as an assistant professor of behavioral neuroscience in the department of psychology at Harvard University in 1978, I moved into administration at another university (Northeastern) in 1998 as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. There, I saw the need for and the application of I/O principles to that operation in higher education. Northeastern was a cooperative education school, meaning that students could work for 6 months of full-time employment alternating with 6 months of full-time study after a normal freshman year. While that work experience was not I/O in the sense of it here, it did give all students a feeling for what they would be doing in that career, if they stuck with it. To me, that familiarity with work offered opportunities for psychologists to apply what they learned to the workplace.
I (IL) see how leaders in organizations, especially schools, need fields like I/O to make sure every department is working not only efficiently but collaboratively. Growing up, my mom would always complain about the struggles of working with multiple personalities in an educational workplace, and how it often would affect the teachers’ treatment of each other, as well as how they taught their students. Having a positive work environment in schools cultivates a motivated learning environment. I/O helps with this by hiring teachers with the proper skills, developing adequate training for educators and staff, and building a workplace that maintains an importance in work-life balance and mental health. I am sure as a dean at Northeastern, JS would have had to apply many I/O related ideas to his work, as his job included finding that balance between staff and students to create an encouraging setting for students to pursue their education.
IL is absolutely right and I (JS) can say that it is unusual for students to see the university as a business as well as a secular spiritual organization, e.g. developing the life of the mind in its students (and faculty). Sometimes, we only appreciate that business side when it is threatened with potential difficulty or even closure as happened to a neighboring college in the town of Albany. It was (and is) the job of senior administration to not only lead that spiritual side, but to make sure the revenue that largely came from tuition was sufficient to meet the operational expenses that went mainly to salaries. I/O principles most definitely came in here in efficiently and effectively organizing that business side of the operation. As a former academic leader, I also felt it was my job to consult with the faculty but not to burden them too much with management issues when they needed and wanted time to devote to their scholarship and to their teaching. After all it is that teaching and scholarship that gives the university its mission, not to mention its attractiveness to the next class of prospective students.
As someone who has always wanted to problem solve, I (IL) think what makes I/O psychology interesting to me is its usefulness to both the employer and the employee. The field highlights how an organization needs cooperation to work.
I (JS) relate to that in multiple phases of my career (professor, senior academic administrator, professor again). I also relate to it in a more basic way. I remember when I was in high school, my mother observing one of her cats pick up a cat-toy in its mouth, go over to the coffee table and drop it on the other side of one of the table’s legs, walk around the other side, and pounce the little toy like it was trying to get away. My mother said, “Look at that cat making a problem for itself to solve.” So, maybe this wanting to solve problems that I mentioned above is very basic, at least when one is not in crisis mode or is looking to the future. Maybe it is a good thing to remember when planning something to do with your life. I/O psychology should certainly provide that.
We will be back with more insights on how IL’s approach to I/O psychology works out. It is a problem worth solving.
