Psychology Professor to Present Basowitz Lecture at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama psychology department will host the annual Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture Friday, April 23, featuring guest speaker Dr. William Graziano.

The public lecture will be at 6:30 p.m. in room 208 of Gordon Palmer Hall on the UA campus. Graziano’s lecture is titled “Motivational Forces in Development:  Children’s Interests in Persons and Things.” The event is free.

Graziano is a professor of psychology at Purdue University.  He received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1976.  His work since that time has focused on such interpersonal processes as attraction, cooperation and conflict in both adults and children.

His research has been supported by The National Science Foundation, The National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. He is a fellow of Division 7 and 8 of the American Psychological Association and has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Personality, Developmental Psychology, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the UA department of psychology in memory of Basowitz, who came to UA in 1940 and remained until called into military service.

Basowitz returned to Tuscaloosa in 1946 and received his undergraduate degree from UA in 1947. He then went on to complete his doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Princeton in 1951.

Basowitz’s distinguished career included administrative roles at the National Institute of Mental Health and professor of psychology for many years at New York University. Basowitz’s lifelong friend, Irving Alexander, professor, is the donor of the Basowitz endowment.

The psychology department is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Teams.