In January 2001, Carol Kivi started working at UMD as a part-time staff member in the Department of Psychology under then-chair Bud McClure. Kivi completed a professional development certificate in distance education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison while helping McClure start the online psychology program. She later worked part time as online faculty and became a full-time faculty member in 2006.
“I am proud of how the online psychology program has served students at a distance and on campus throughout the years and has been especially salient this past year,” Kivi says.
From 2006–2018, Kivi served as faculty advisor for the department’s peer advising. “I loved working with the psychology peer advisors to serve psychology students,” she says. “One of my greatest accomplishments was to receive the UMD Outstanding Faculty Award in May 2010. I have kept in touch with many of the peer advisors and am proud to see how much they have accomplished throughout the years.”
In 2019, Kivi took a single semester leave to begin a Collaborative Online International Teaching project with Southeastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, which included a visit to Finland. She worked with two Finnish psychologists and teachers, Mari Hakkila and Karoliina Saure, to teach a joint three-week module on stress and wellness during the spring and fall of 2020.
The course was designed to promote cultural awareness between students in Finland and the USA. “Little did we know the topic would be so timely,” says Kivi. “Students were able to share cultural information while also sharing understanding of how the pandemic affected students across the globe. It was an enriching experience for all of us.”
Kivi says her “retirement plans are fluid but following the pandemic include in-person visits with family and friends, travel to warmer climates, continuing my involvement with the Lake Superior Rose Society and Gitchee Gummi Garden club, remodeling my old farmhouse, and lovely unstructured days spending time in my garden and by the lake.”