Dr. Ronald (Ron) Sigmundi

Associate Professor

After receiving a BA from Northern Iowa in psychology and PhD from the University of Washington in biopsychology (specifically, animal learning and motivation), I engaged in a post doctoral fellowship in behavioral ecology at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, before coming to St. Lawrence. Over the years, introductory psychology, research methods, and learning theory have developed into my teaching specialties, but more recently, I’ve been engaged by the psychology of happiness and offer seminars on that topic. My early theoretical interests pursued the topics of animal learning and motivation, and then, human decision making. More recently, I have moved along a path which connects program evaluation in liberal education to both scientific and self evaluation, through a scale-independent model of self-regulation. That’s about all I think about any more when I’m not enjoying my family’s hobby farm out by Waddington or watching college basketball on TV. The farm provides wetland and riparian habitats for my wife, Susan, and me, two dogs, two cats, two horses, and innumerable wildlife. We would like to bequeath the farm and its old stone farmhouse to an organization like the Audubon society who might be able to preserve the flora, fauna, and habitat for posterity.