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Professor Slem (bigger picture) has been at Cal
Poly since 1975 (just after Columbus discovered America and Father Serra founded
the San Luis Obispo Mission). He graduated from Sylmar
High School in the San Fernando Valley, attended UCLA as an undergraduate, and
Wayne State University as a graduate. Dr. Slem has a Ph.D. in Clinical-Community
Psychology. He completed his predoctoral internship in Medical Psychology at Langley
Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute (UC, San Francisco).
Coming to San Luis Obispo before he had a job offer, Dr. Slem chose teaching over
a clinical practice. Consistent with his previous training, Dr. Slem created one
of the first Psychology of Stress courses at the university level. Psychology 317
is currently being taught by health psycyhologist Dana Putnam. In 1985 Dr. Slem 'retooled'
to complement one of Cal Poly's strengths, engineering. Dr. Slem and fellow psychologist,
Dan Levi,
began to study and consult with Northern Telecom in order to better understand the
impact of technological change on the American workforce so that technological innovation
could meet its potential. This began a decade of research studying such topics as
computer integrated manufacturing, flowlines, TQM, voice and electronic mail, and
most recently concurrent engineering and teamwork. The studies included Japanese
and European workforces and their work led to a number of insights and suggestions
on how corporations could best manage their human assets to use continuous technological
and organizational change as a competitive strategy. In the era of mania corporate
downsizing and restructuring, most of their suggestions have been largely ignored
(but I was
right!).
Dr. Slem won the Cal Poly Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993. In a university of
excellent teachers, Dr. Slem was very honored to be nominated for this award.
In 1995, Dr. Slem responded to the university's encouragement to make Cal Poly an
innovative leader in instructional technology. Based on 20 years experience in team
teaching the introductory psychology course, Dr. Slem believed that the World Wide
Web might allow the potential of computer technology to be fulfilled in higher education.
He taught himself the basics in creating world wide web pages and has worked extensively
with Dr.
Ned Schultz of the Psychology Department to create an educational web platform
to complement (not replace) the Cal Poly educational experience.
Dr. Slem is married with three whacko teenagers and a
foxy wife Alexa. They all live in San Luis Obispo.
Some examples of Dr. Slem's research:
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