Office: 55 Coming Street, room 102
(just inside first door on porch)

Phone: (843) 953-8196

Email:  steuerf@cofc.edu

Mailing Address: Department of Psychology
                             College of Charleston
                             Charleston, SC 29424
 
 

             New book:
                                                      Steuer, F.B., & Hustedt, J. T. (2002). TV or No TV? A Primer on the
                                                           Psychology of Television. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
 
 
 

General Psychology Syllabus

Developmental Psychology Syllabus

Mass Media and Human Development Syllabus

Advanced General Psychology Syllabus

Philosophy of Teaching

Brief Biography
 
 

I believe that education involves four separate but interdependent factors. When I plan any course I teach, I have all four factors in mind. The factors are:

Acquiring or enhancing academic values (Among the academic values I include honesty, objectivity, accuracy, thoroughness, and being systematic.)

Acquiring knowledge of a particular discipline (In my courses, the discipline is psychology and knowledge of it involves learning methods of inquiry, theories, principles, facts, and applications.)

Improving the ability to learn independently (To learn independently, one must be able to seek out relevant information and, having done so, one must be able to read, analyze, organize, and synthesize that information.)

Refining communication skills (Being educated implies that one be able to write and speak in a logical, clear and effective manner.)
 

As a teacher, it has been my observation that many students need additional practice to become strong, critical, fearless, independent readers. Because I believe that reading ability contributes to all four factors described above, I stress independent reading in all my courses.
 
 

I was born in late 1942, the first child of Dale and Mim Brown.  About four years later my brother, Randy, was born.
                                                                    
We lived various places in rural upstate New York as my dad moved about in his job as agricultural extension service agent. I spent most of my childhood in the idyllic village of Cooperstown (population 2,400). In those days it was a place of great beauty and safety. Children had a lot of freedom there. We hiked and explored and rode bikes and swam and ice skated and went sledding pretty much without the need for close adult supervision. Cooperstown will always be "home" to me. My first job as a teenager was selling tickets and souvenirs at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I attended college at the University of Rochester, where I majored in psychology. I next got an M.S. in child development at Cornell University. While at Cornell, I got married and my husband and I moved to Chicago for a couple of years before going back to graduate school, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Living in Chicago was a big shock for this Cooperstown girl.) My son, Evan, was born in Chapel Hill.
                                                                      
I have a Ph.D. in psychology from UNC. I taught for two years at Eastern Kentucky University and did a post-doctoral fellowship in pediatric psychology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. I have been on the faculty of the College of Charleston since 1976.