Psychology as an academic discipline has been a part of the University at Albany throughout its existence. It entered the organization chart of the Teachers College sometime in the early 50's as the combined Department of Philosophy and Psychology and shortly thereafter became a separate department. In the late 50's, it became a part of the newly organized College of Arts and Sciences, where it has remained, except for the period, ending in 1993, when that College was divided into three separate Colleges and Psychology was incorporated into the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. From a faculty of three in the mid 50's, the department grew to a high of 36 before leveling off at its current number, 29, with most of the faculty added between 1975 and 1985.

Bachelors degrees in Psychology have been awarded throughout most of the long history of the Department, Master's since the late 50's and Ph.D.s since the late 60's. Initially, advanced degrees were offered only in General Psychology. Program differentiation at the graduate level began in 1970 with the formal organization of the Ph. D. programs in Clinical and in Social Psychology, later retitled the Social-Personality program. The Experimental program that remained was later separated into the Biopsychology and the Cognitive programs. The Industrial-Organizational area, originally a subspeciality in the Social-Personality area, achieved program status in 1990. About 100 graduate students are enrolled in the five graduate programs each year. In addition, the Department serves approximately 800 undergraduate majors and enrolls about 2500 students in undergraduate courses each semester.

[Source: http://www.albany.edu/psychology/prospective_students.php]