BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT

The move for the establishment of the Department of Psychology, in the Faculty of the Social Sciences of the Olabisi Onabanjo University was made by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Afolabi Soyode and the Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof. O. O. Odugbemi.

To make the Departmental programmes meet up with the requirements of the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC), Dr. S.K. Balogun (Reader in Psychology of the University of Ibadan) was invited by the Vice Chancellor Prof. Afolabi Soyode, Mr. A. S. Opayemi was mandated by the Dean Prof. O. O. Odugbemi to work with Dr. Balogun in developing the programmes for the new Department.

The approval for the establishment of the Department of Psychology was given at the Senate meeting held on the 26^th August, 2003. Dr. S. K. Balogun was appointed as the pioneer Head of the Department of Psychology and 4 other academic staff and 1 non-academic staff.

The first set of students was admitted as first year (100 level) students for the 2002/2003 academic year. Individual and the society at large. For example, a psychological principle that has been found to be a corollary of societal development is that of its needs and wants as demonstrated in the aggregate level of achievement motivation possessed by individuals within the society.

Many areas of psychology such as developmental (human progression in life cycle); industrial (matching the individual potentials to the available job openings); political (study of political behaviour, especially in the democratic society of Nigeria clinical (ameliorating mal-adjustive behaviour); counselling (rehabilitation of disoriented people); consumer (marketing, advertisement of people and products) and many other areas, to mention just a few, show how versatile the knowledge and practice of Psychology is to the society. Every aspect of human life is an essential tool for the discipline of Psychology and this is justified by the desire of many candidates to study Psychology at the University level.

The hitherto lukewarm attitude towards Psychology, being a relatively new discipline in Nigeria, has changed for the better as indicated by the surge in the number of candidates seeking admission into Nigerian universities to study Psychology. Over the years the Universities in the country have been unable to cope with the upsurge in the number of applicants. The University of Ibadan, which used to have between 200 and 300 applicants per year, now has between 1000 and 1500 applications per year. The same trend is observed in Federal and State Universities such as University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ado Ekiti, and Adekunle Ajasin University. Even among the private Universities, the importance of Psychology as an academic discipline is recognized as demonstrated by the list of available courses at Babcock University. Olabisi Onabanjo University is not left behind in this new dispensation of harnessing the human potentials of their generality of people, hence the establishment of the Department.