After many years of dedicated work, Dr. O’Neil will be retiring at the end of this semester. Dr. O’Neil has had a huge impact on the Educational Psychology department here at UConn and has inspired countless students with his psychoeducational teachings. Here is a statement from him reflecting on his years here at the University of Connecticut:
I will retire on June 1, 2025, after 43 years at UConn and 50 years of university teaching, research, and service. My departing message is immense gratitude to all my past and present students, my colleagues in school counseling and EPSY, and the professional staff across the UConn campus. This is my way of saying farewell: an expression of goodwill, acknowledging that you all will be missed.
I have loved working at UConn. Those six words say it all!
No one stays in a single professional setting for 43 years unless they are engaged, satisfied, and excited. The excellent students, the brilliant faculty, and the supportive staff across campus have helped me immensely. I appreciate all the support and resources that I have received.
To contextualize my time on campus, here is a summary of my academic positions at UConn, my future plans, and what I leave behind.
Brief Career History
Before coming to UConn, I worked at the University of Kansas (1975-1982) as a faculty member in their Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology Programs and as a psychologist and Assistant Director in the Counseling Center.
After earning tenure at Kansas, I moved to UConn in 1982 and was Program Coordinator of the Counseling Program from 1982-1988, adding 7 new courses to the counseling curriculum that needed updating.
In 1990, I was invited to join the School of Family Studies (now HDFS) and spent 17 years there. The HDFS Dean asked me to develop a diversity/multicultural curriculum and teach courses on counseling, violence, and gender roles. Working with the HDFS faculty, we created a Diversity Committee and developed a diversity curriculum, specifically a required course on diversity and other classes on race, class, gender, and other multicultural indices.
In 2006, I was invited back to the Neag School of Education in the Counselor Education Program to help with CACREP accreditation and teach courses in human development, career development, and the psychology of men. Over the years, Neag had become a center for educational excellence and I wanted to be part of it and contribute in any way I could.
The past 18 years in EPSY have been very good for me! To join committed, caring, and generative scholars and energetic students was a perfect way to finish my career. Thank you, UConn, for allowing me to work in various departments where I could make the most difference.
What Am I Going to Do in Retirement?
The looming question to most retirees usually is: “What are you going to do in retirement?”
I have moved to Narragansett, Rhode Island, to be near the ocean, the waves, and sea air. I did my last sabbatical there and never left. This coastal community is where I can grow, stay healthy, work on my research, develop more leisure activities, and become more spiritually grounded. Living a half a mile from the sea has been restorative and permanently altered me; something that I am also grateful for. I will continue to work on my gender role conflict (GRC) research program and maybe write another book on men and finalize a few unfinished papers on psychoeducation, violence as mental health issues, inter-generational trauma of my famous ancestors, and my gender role journey concept. I will also be doing more gardening. Like my mother, I am good with geraniums.
What Am I Leaving Behind?
The answer to this question is a lot for sure!
There will be many memories about UConn to sort through. Like most retirees, there will be substantial loss of primary identity indices and professional roles. These losses will be challenging, but I am looking forward to helping people outside my faculty and private practice roles.
The most concrete thing I am leaving behind is my Gender Role Conflict Research websites: James-oneil.scholar.uconn.edu or Genderroleconflictresearch.com.
I have been updating this webpage for the last four years. It is not your typical faculty web page with a biography, a picture, vita, and publications. This web page summarizes in one place the theory and research on men’s gender role conflict (GRC) over the last 45 years. Twenty-four separate files summarize the 600 empirical studies that have utilized my Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS) over the years. The web page includes 900 references to men’s GRC, the psychometric and construct validity evidence on the GRCS, and 2 dozen video lectures from my classes on gender roles, diversity, and positive mental health. I also give commentary on what is “at stake” with men’s GRC and what needs to be done next. I am hoping that the web page will be useful to future researchers, teachers, and clinicians. What I have done with my research and teaching at UConn is what I leave behind on this webpage.
Gratitude Is My Farewell and Departing Message
Studies have demonstrated that expressing gratitude reduces envy, anxiety and depression and increases self-esteem, life satisfaction, and makes us more resilient. Therefore, gratitude is the perfect human quality to mention at the end of my career here at UConn. My gratitude is to the thousands of students that I have taught and many talented faculty colleagues and the professional staff that I have interacted with. I am very grateful to every student I have had in class. Students have given me so much energy and stimulating ideas over these many years. They have kept me engaged, alive, and healthy. Moreover, my current colleagues and staff in EPSY have been the best faculty that I have joined in my 50 years of university teaching. It has been a blessing to teach in this generative department. Thank you all!
Jim O’Neil