BYU Psychology Timeline

1876 - 2026

1876 - Karl G. Maeser is made principal of Brigham Young Academy (BYA)

1886 - First psychology course is taught at BYA

1891 - Benjamin Cluff, a scholar of psychology, teaches at BYA

1892 – Benjamin Cluff replaces Karl G. Maeser as principal

1897 - G. Stanley Hall, American psychologist who earned the first doctorate in psychology in the U.S., lectures at BYA

1903 – BYA becomes Brigham Young University

1907 - Joseph Peterson, first PhD psychology faculty member, arrives at the university and develops a total of 9 courses in general and experimental psychology

1908 - Joseph Peterson is promoted to full professor and begins publishing academic papers

1910 - The university combines psychology and philosophy in the same department

1914 - Dean R. Brimhall, son of George H. Brimhall, begins teaching psychology courses

1916 - Psychology is cut back to two courses after WWI

1920 – Psychology officially becomes its own department

1923 - M. Wilford Poulson becomes psychology chairman with the longest record for tenure and chairman in the psychology department

1930 - Poulson organizes the first psychology club

1946 - Mark K. Allen joins the psychology department and writes The History of Psychology at Brigham Young University in 1975

1947 - Poulsen and Arden Frandsen create the Utah Psychological Association; Mark K. Allen begins teaching psychology courses at the university

1954 – The psychology department moves to the Smith Family Living Center and has a statistics lab, counseling and observation rooms, as well as group dynamics and experiential learning classrooms

1955 - Psi Chi replaces Poulsen's club and the department has 7 faculty with PhDs

1958 – The board of trustees approve the university's PhD clinical program

1959 - The PhD in general psychology is approved

1962 – Department receives approval to establish a clinic at BYU

1970s - Experimental psychology becomes a major part of the department with biological, behavioral, and cognitive psychology

1971 - The clinical program is granted accreditation by the American Psychological Association

Mid 1970s – Allen Bergin creates the LDS Perspectives in Psychology class (now called The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Psychology)

1975 – There are 549 undergraduate majors in psychology and 84 graduate students and those enrolled in all psychology classes reached a total of 3,194

1980 - Allen Bergin bridges faith and psychology and to include spiritual perspectives in psychotherapy

1999 - BYU’s Neuroscience Center is developed (the center has grown to 600+ students today)

2004 – The Intuition journal is founded by Dr. Harold Miller (runs from 2004-2024)

2006 - Ramona Hopkins is the first female psychology department chair

2009 - Martin Seligman, renowned positive psychologist, gives a BYU forum address

2013 – BYU gets an MRI research facility

2015 – Julianne Holt-Lunstad publishes groundbreaking research on loneliness

2020 – Bruce Brown receives the Translational Medicine Award from BYU Simmons Research Endowment for COVID-19 research

2021 - Dean Padilla Walker and Niwako Yamawaki become dean and associate dean of FHSS

2022 - The MRI Research Facility at BYU upgrades their MRI scanner to a Siemens MAGNETOM Vida

2024 – Chad Jensen becomes the psychology department chair

2025 – BYU celebrates its 150th anniversary with the theme, “Celebrating Gifts of Light”

2026 - Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith are awarded a Sage 10-Year Impact Award for their 2015 paper “Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review” and Holt-Lunstad is recognized as one of the top 1% researchers globally