Mental clarity:
what was really interesting for me to discover was that there used to be a group of scholars who were doing these experiments on university campuses which would be completely impossible to do now because of changed attitudes and perceptions regarding was is considered "science"
Parapsychology was never really accepted in the scientific community. Parapsychology never did meet the requirements of basic scientific methodology.
Science has always been science. Nothing changes that method. Validity and reproducibility is essential to science and it is on the first requirement - validity - that parapsychology fails miserably.
Validity means that the means of measurement is valid - in other words, does the measurement actually measure what the scientist says it does. In parapsychology, that is not possible. It never has been possible and it likely never will be. That is why parapsychology fell out of favor. It cannot claim validity and therefore cannot be science.
Ideas about what science is hasn't changed. But people continue to try to change it to something it isn't.
Parapsychology tried and failed the fundamental test to qualify it as science.
By the way, the class you took sounds interesting. But it isn't science. It is anthropology.