Hi! My name is Rachel Stone. You can call me Rachel or Ms. Stone (whichever you are comfortable with). I am a full-time psychology instructor here at Portland Community College. I have been teaching since 2008, when I started as part-time faculty at PCC, but my true start at PCC was as a student and student employee. I got my start as a student employee in 2001 and worked here through both my bachelor’s in psychology and my master’s in counseling, both at Portland State. As you can imagine, I have seen PCC from the perspective of a few different roles.
Getting to this place was a bumpy process that included some false starts along the way (I am sure some of you can relate). Although I have been in the teaching game for some time, I still remember being overwhelmed by trying to figure it all out on my own. I didn’t know who to ask or where to go for help, a common experience for first-generation college students like me. It helped make me resourceful but also created a lot of unnecessary angst. One of the reasons I love teaching at a community college is that I can reach out to students to offer that support and share resources.
Professionally, I can nerd out on a lot of topics in psychology (that’s pretty handy as an instructor), but some of my favorites (in no particular order) are human attachment (and, if I’m being honest, animal attachment as well), the intersection of biology and psychology, how people’s beliefs and behavior are influenced by social forces, grief and loss, identity development, political psychology, personal awareness and development, applying psychology to educational outcomes, cognitive development, social cognition, moral development, pop culture (interesting overlap with social psychology)… I’ll stop before I list almost everything in psychology.
In my personal life, I love walking/hiking for recreation and exploring the natural world around us. I am a bird watcher, a rock hound (the nerdy name for a rock hunter), an amateur photographer, a novice gardener (pulling weeds counts, right), and a sci-fi/fantasy fan.
I alternate between teaching Psychology and Human Relations (PSY 101), Social Psychology (PSY 216), Introduction to Psychology, Part 1 (PSY 201A), and Human Development (PSY 215), depending on the term. In the past, I have taught Family and Intimate Relationships (PSY 222).
My current and upcoming courses are listed below, and links to my information pages for each course are found on the right side of the page.