Excerpts from a conversation between Professor Al Cain, chair of the Psychology Department from 1981-1991, and Professor Richard Gonzalez, current chair.

Rich: When did you first come to the University of Michigan?
Al: In 1950, right out of high school. Way back then I had an introductory course—small, about 25 students. I had a fabulous teacher who very much excited my interests in psychology... It was really stamped in on the clinical side between my junior and senior year. U-M had a summer camp—Fresh Air Camp near Hell, Michigan—for disturbed boys, almost all delinquent, aggressive kids with control problems. The camp ordinarily only took graduate students in psychology, sociology and social work, but never undergraduates. It happened to be at the time of the Korean War and a number of their staff had been drafted (the males), so they had a real shortfall... I was accepted. It was an intensive, draining experience, and it persuaded me just how much could be done even through only eight-week sessions. It was work that I loved. So, senior year was much more psychology and then I had another year to follow other interests and take courses for application and admission to the doctoral program.

Rich: Your graduate studies began in 1955. What are some highlights of your graduate program?
Al: Splendid teaching and supervision by first-rate, experienced clinicians who were quite challenging and who made it quite clear that there were pervasive developmental issues you had to recognize if you were going to work with kids. Plus, a great group of classmates from whom I learned richly.

Rich: You became an assistant professor right after receiving your PhD.
Al: Yeah, a joint position as an assistant professor in both psychiatry and psychology at the UM Children’s Psychiatric Hospital. Then, only a couple years later, I became the chief psychologist at the children’s hospital.

Rich: The second or third year into your assistant professorship you became the chief psychologist! And you were promoted very quickly—in 1965.
Al: Yes; it probably helped that I had four or five predoctoral publications. When working on the next couple, Bobbie (my wife) said, “Could you maybe put that aside and finish your doctoral dissertation?” Also, the pace of promotion could be quite different back then.

Rich: Tell us about the topics of those early papers.
Al: They range widely: self-aggression in young children; psychotic behavior in children. I wrote an article about borderline children who at times played crazy as a means of mastering and containing their inner chaos: it received a particularly warm reception. With Irene Fast, I studied and wrote on the impact of death on families: pioneering work on sibling death, SIDS (crib) death, and on the impact of parent death, especially parent suicide, on children—virtually all of this derived from clinical samples. My current research and writing continues to address the effects of parent death on children. Initiated with Neil Kalter and in collaboration throughout with a wondrously talented group of our clinical graduate students plus social work colleagues, and supported handsomely at points by The Power Foundation and the National Funeral Directors Association, it is a 10- to 13-year longitudinal, quantitative and qualitative study of a community sample of such families, employing multiple measures and multiple data sources. A key role in our research team is currently played by Amy Saldinger, whose thesis on anticipated deaths won the Department’s Marquis Award, among other honors.

Rich: A major part of your life here at U-M was being Chair of the Psychology Department for 10 years. What were some of the reasons that lead you to agree to become chair?
Al: I had served as acting chair during the previous chair’s sabbatical—that was Warren Norman... I got a taste of it, I thought I could do it, and I enjoyed the problem solving... I’d been blessed with two splendid chairs—Bill McKeachie (Psychology) and Stu Finch (Children’s Psychiatric Hospital); they demonstrated the difference a chair could make, not just institutionally but also in the lives of faculty. The Michigan Way is that we hire the very best people and then back them to the hilt, providing them with whatever resources we can muster and helping remove any obstacles they encounter. That was very attractive to me.

Rich: What were some of the highlights of your term as chair?
Al: We strengthened and broadened several areas in the department; freshened the undergraduate curriculum; reduced the years of out-of-state tuition costs for our graduate students by some curricular changes; fought for and won definitive approval for the ‘new’ building; recruited a magnificent set of new faculty in the face of a 10% budget cut. There was magnificent support throughout, one of the unique joys in this department, amidst all the inevitable frustrations and costs of administration. You work with first-rate people in a distinguished department. I had a great associate chair, Tony Morris, and wonderful staff led ever so effectively by Nancy Bates. The faculty were, and still are, devoted to the well-being of the department, not just their individual or program interests, and what a difference that makes! And of course, I took pride in continuing and fulfilling our tradition of commitment to being both a first-rate graduate training and research department as well as dedicated to excellence and innovation in undergraduate teaching. We both know how rare and difficult an achievement that is.

 

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