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Department of Psychology College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Ron Chandler

Headshot of a man in glasses.

Graduate Faculty Representative

Biosketch

Dr. Ron Chandler is currently a Senior Instructional Professor in University of Florida’s Department of Psychology and the department’s Undergraduate Coordinator. He has a Bachelor of Science from Stephen F. Austin State University in Aquatic Biology and Wildlife Science, a Master of Science in Limnology and Aquatic Chemistry from Texas State University, and a PhD in Educational Psychology from Walden University at University of Minnesota. He teaches the Psychology of Sustainability, an introduction to the field of sustainability education that he created in 2014, as well as classes in Positive Psychology and Social Psychology. Creation of sustainability psychology was informed by I am the Paradigm Shift Theory (Chandler, 2014) which describes the development of the six essential characteristics of the effective sustainability agent and that occur through four phenomena, Nature as Resolve, Fear Master, Paradigm Shift, and New Normal. Engaging in these phenomena results in an individual that opts to be guided by and to guide others with post-conventional reasoning rather than conventional thinking toward creation of a sustainable human ecology.

Ron’s principal area of interest is “understanding and describing the role of human dignity in education, communication, and research for promoting prosocial behavior and sustainability. It is his contention that to the extent that we resolve factors negatively affecting individual and societal experience of dignity, in the classroom and community, it is to that extent we can create and maintain a sustainable human ecology. In the classroom, students experience an improved sense of dignity while raising their content comprehension, critical thinking, and application of psychological theories and concepts to real world problems through his Coteacher-Colearner Teaching Team (CCTT) approach. CCTT was constructed using, among other concepts, Experiential Learning, Flipped Classroom, Jigsaw, Multiple Intelligence, Peer Learning, Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, Reflexive Narrative, and Scaffolding.

Ron was inspired to choose psychology as his final career by the need to understand and “answer” the question “Why do we do what we do to ourselves and the planet?” and to use that answer to inform individuals in ways that encourage them to treat themselves, others, and Earth with greater respect. He is also president and cofounder of Conservation Initiative for the Asian Elephant (CIFAE) a 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded in 2000.  CIFAE’s mission is to “identify issues of critical importance to the sustainability of the Asian elephant and the peoples sharing its habitat.” 

To learn more about Ron’s journey through the environmental sciences to psychology and the discovery of the centrality of dignity in and for education and sustainability, watch his TEDxUF talk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4cQ_jdIgZg&t=359s. You can learn more about the psychology of sustainability from his textbook The Psychology of Sustainability: Understanding the Relationship Between Self and Earth 2nd Edition. Cognella Academic Publishers. Contact Ron at ronchandler@ufl.edu, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-chandler-25248813/, and https://www.facebook.com/ron.chandler.756/