A Message From Your President
Lois Tetrick
It is the end of July and I am preparing my presidential column for you, the members of SIOP, knowing that you won’t see this column until October. I know that it is good to be future oriented, but I feel a bit like I need a crystal ball!
To put my thinking in context, I realize that July to October is a busy time. By October, the awards deadlines are past and the Awards Committee chaired by Wendy Boswell is hard at work making difficult decisions; we await the news. The deadline for Fellow nominations is looming large, although it is still not too late as long as you are reading this before November 1; maybe if you really hurry, you can still make it. George Hollenbeck and his committee are waiting to receive all the completed nominations. We are anticipating another stellar group of nominees as was the case last year.
The submission deadline for the SIOP conference has just passed. Steven Rogelberg, his committee members, and the Administrative Office are hard at work processing all of the submissions, while the rest of us are recovering from the adrenaline rush resulting from the interaction of deadlines, any number of Murphyisms, and procrastination. The reviewers are eagerly awaiting their assigned submissions to read.
There is a common underlying thread among these activities. For those of you who submitted nominations or sent in submissions for the conference, you should have found the process much easier. The Administrative Office has been instrumental in automating processes that had not previously been electronic, and there has been a substantial overhaul of the conference program management system.
The new 3-day conference format and other changes promise an exciting conference in San Francisco. Doug Pugh and his committee are not only looking forward to San Francisco but have their eyes on future conference sites.
Our third Leading Edge Consortium is just around the corner. The goal of the Leading Edge Consortium is to attract a small number of researchers and practitioners to focus on a specific topic in an integrative manner supporting our strategic goal of maintaining and enhancing the scientist–practitioner model. This year’s Leading Edge Consortium was organized by Leatta Hough as the General chair, Michael Frese as the Science chair, and Bill Mobley as the Practice chair and focuses on Enabling Innovation in Organizations: The Leading Edge. If you haven’t planned on attending and this topic is of interest to you, I encourage you to check the SIOP Web page at www.siop.org/lec to find out the latest on the consortium and to register to attend if possible.
In line with our strategic goals of advocacy, visibility, and the scientist–practitioner model, SIOP organized a taskforce to coordinate our comments about the revision of the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Dick Jeanneret and Shelly Zedeck agreed to lead a taskforce to prepare SIOP’s response. Members of the task force are Winfred Arthur, José Cortina, Marilyn Gowing, Jerry Kehoe, Jim Outtz, Bob Ramos, Paul Sackett, and Suzanne Tsacoumis. The taskforce reflects considerable expertise in the Standards and knowledge of the last revision process. I hope that all of you submitted your comments regarding general areas of the Standards needing revision. The deadline for submitting your comments to us to forward collectively to the American Psychological Association has passed and I want to thank everyone who submitted their comments to SIOP’s taskforce. However, I believe that there is still time for you to submit your comments directly to APA if you have not done so. Comments will be accepted at the following Web site until October 15 www.apa.org/science/revisions.html. Based on the comments received by the Management Committee appointed by AERA, APA, and NCME, a revision committee will be appointed and begin work on the revision in 2008. We will keep you updated as things progress.
On the advocacy and visibility front, I wanted to let you know that Barb Wanchisen, executive director of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, & Cognitive Sciences, and I met with Kathy Salaita, a scientific review administrator (SRA) with the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institute for Health, and Jacqueline Meszaros, the Program Director of the Innovation and Organizational Change (IOC), Decision, Risk, and Management Sciences Division of the SBE Director of the National Science Foundation. The purpose of our visits was to put a face on I-O psychology and explore potential opportunities for funding of I-O research. It appears that there are some funding opportunities both within NIH and NSF. Within NIH, there are some funds for researching health services including topics such as medical errors, aging, safety, and structure and staffing of health care delivery organizations. IOC clearly matches I-O interests, and NSF has other programs that may match your interests. As is the general advice, both individuals advised that interested researchers identify a program that seems to best fit their research project and then talk with the program officer. We will continue to work with the Federation and other sources to increase the visibility of I-O psychology to funding agencies.
Another activity that is underway in collaboration with the Federation is a forum on Work and Aging: Psychological-Organizational Science Contributions to the Management of an Aging and Age-Diverse Workforce. Ruth Kanfer, a member of Scientific Affairs, is taking the lead in working with the Federation to organize this event. It is our hope that we will continue our collaboration with the Federation in this manner to enhance the visibility of I-O psychology and highlight I-O psychology’s contributions and potential future contributions. Scientific Affairs, chaired by Steve Kozlowski, will be developing procedures for identifying topics, in consultation with the Federation, for future events.
There are just a few of the many efforts underway relative to our strategic goals. As part of SIOP’s strategic planning process begun in the fall of 2005, past president Jeff McHenry formed a special task force to look at SIOP’s governance structure, both in terms of its efficiency and alignment to SIOP’s strategic plan. The task force is chaired by Kurt Kraiger and is comprised of: Dick Jeanneret, Irv Goldstein, Rich Klimoski, Jeff Weekley, Janet Barnes-Farrell, Jim Farr, Milt Hakel, Laura Koppes, Mickey Quinones, and John Cornwell. Collectively, the task force members have a wealth of experience with the Executive Committee, and many were involved in the formation of SIOP many years ago.
At the beginning of the summer, task force members interviewed a number of current and former members of the Executive Committee, as well as leaders of other professional organizations such as the Academy of Management and other APA divisions. The interviews focused on perceived strengths and weaknesses of the current SIOP governance structure, as well as other governance models. Notably, the majority of interviewees said that most other related professional organizations look up to SIOP as the gold standard in governance. However, a number of issues arose in these interviews, including whether the Executive Committee as constituted provided adequate representation of primary constituencies within the society; whether there were processes in place that created adequate accountability and means for executing key tasks related to the business of the society; whether there was an adequate process in place for preparing new elected officials and committee chairs for their roles, and whether the current Executive Committee structure was adequately aligned with the strategic plan as well as the ongoing business of SIOP.
The task force met in mid-July to review this data and to craft an initial set of recommendations to the Executive Committee for changes to current Executive Committee structure. These recommendations will be presented to the Executive Committee in September for review and feedback. It is then planned that a final set of recommendations will be voted on by the Executive Committee at our January meeting. We will keep you informed about the proposed changes as they become more concrete. In the likely event of changes in the positions constituting the Executive Committee, there would need to be a bylaws change voted on by members, and the new structure would be instituted by the 2009 conference.
These are just a few of the activities that we have been doing. If you haven’t done so recently, you might want to check out the committee activities and goals that are available on the SIOP Web page at www.siop.org/reportsandminutes/. SIOP is definitely a vibrant organization with a fantastic climate of volunteerism!
I realize that we are all busy people with many responsibilities, and I find it most rewarding to be associated with, let alone be president of, SIOP. The extent of involvement of our members is a hallmark for which we are known. It is interesting to me that there appear to be so many people who don’t understand what I-O psychology is, but they do know that SIOP is an exemplar of member involvement. I believe our reputation is because SIOP values our members and encourages participation of all of our members. I truly believe that we are striving to advance our strategic goals:
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Visible and trusted authority on work-related psychology;
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Advocate and champion of I-O psychology to policy makers;
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Organization of choice of I-O professionals;
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Model of integrated scientist–practitioner effectiveness that values research, practice, and education equally and seeks higher standards in all three areas.