LGBT and SIOP: A Report From the Big Apple
Eden B. King and Mikki R. Hebl
As is true of most things in New York City, the meeting and reception for SIOP’s ad hoc committee on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues was stimulating and enlightening. After welcoming many folks—both LGBT and allies—to our open meeting, we described the great progress we have made this year in working toward our mission, which is “to increase favorable attitudes and awareness of LGBT issues within SIOP, to encourage research on LGBT issues, and to promote LGBT voice and support.”
First, and perhaps most significantly, we presented a SIOP LGBT Award!
In NYC, we initiated our presentation of “The Best Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) SIOP Research Award.” This award was given to Nancy Day and Patricia Greene for research entitled, “Sexual-Orientation Policies, Attitudes, and Firm Size: An Exploratory Study.” The recipients of this award received a plaque and cash prize of $500.
This award is given to an individual or group of individuals in recognition of a poster or symposium paper presented at SIOP that represents an outstanding example of scholarship addressing issues facing lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender individuals in the workplace. It will be offered again in 2008 and we welcome your submissions, which may involve empirical research, theory, or teaching-related activities and may be in any area of I-O psychology (e.g., compensation, employee relations, equal employment opportunity, human factors, job analysis, job design, organizational development, organizational behavior, leadership, position classification, safety, selection, training). However, the focus of the submission must involve some aspect of issues related to the lesbian/gay/ bisexual/transgender (LGBT) experience in the workplace. Papers submitted to SIOP that pertain to LGBT-related issues will be considered automatically. The criteria that will be used to judge the award include the following:
1. Have a sound basis in science, theory, and/or practice.
2. Increase our understanding of workplace issues faced by LGBT employees.
3. Offer practical guidance to organizations seeking to improve the workplace experiences of LGBT employees.
4. Extend and broaden our theoretical and/or empirical knowledge of sexual identity in the workplace.
5. Represent technical adequacy, including issues of internal validity, external validity, appropriate methodology, appropriate statistical analyses, comprehensiveness of review (if the publication is a literature review, and/or theoretical rigor and soundness.
So, again, we encourage you to conduct research and pursue the many lines of investigation that exist and are underrepresented in this area.
Second, we also began the task of initiating an endowment for the SIOP LGBT Award.
To ensure that “The Best LGBT SIOP Award” is an award that becomes an annual SIOP event, our committee has initiated an endowment, created as an Emerging Fund through the SIOP Foundation. In order to create this endowment, our committee is trying to raise the requisite $25,000 within a 5-year timeframe. We happily report that we already have received $10,000. We are excited about this and encourage you to personally contribute or to identify any individual or organization who might be interested in donating to this tax-deductible fund. You can send a check made out to “The SIOP Foundation” (with “LGBT SIOP Award” on the subject line) to P.O. Box 1205, Bowling Green, OH, 43402-8005. Alternatively, you can donate online at http://www.siop.org/foundationdonation. If you donate online, you should specify that you want to donate to the category marked “Emerging Funds.” On the following screen, you will be asked “to whom you are making this donation in honor of” and you should specify “LGBT SIOP Award.” To test out technology, we made a donation this morning and the computer happily and successfully took our money and directed us to a printable sheet that can be used for tax purposes. We happily and graciously thank you for any amount of contribution, and most importantly, we really believe that permanently adding this award will permanently give LGBT-related issues an important stage within SIOP.
Third, we continue to promote LGBT voice within SIOP through the LGBT discussion list.
The SIOP home page was expanded to include a LGBT discussion group that facilitates interaction and collaboration among SIOP members who are interested in this area. Its use has been limited, but it has the potential to provide a forum for discussing research issues (e.g., sampling concerns, theoretical implications), publication-related issues (e.g., best outlet for a given manuscript), and other topics of interest (e.g., access to research participants) to those conducting LGBT-related research. We welcome all of you to use this forum, and you can find information on how to subscribe at www.siop.org/ comm/LGBT/default.aspx. Please feel free to post information that you believe is relevant and important for LGBT discussion list members.
We are excited about what we have done this year! Yet, we are cognizant that more work remains. First, we still have $15,000 to raise toward our endowment. Please help! Second, we are beginning to create a list of folks who would like to be on an identifiable “SIOP LGBT and Allies” e-mail list that can be used to e-mail each other throughout the year and particularly prior to SIOP conferences so that LGBT individuals and their allies can be identified and connected at the SIOP conference. Third, we will continue to increase the visibility of LGBT workplace issues at the 2008 SIOP conference via the promotion of more research sessions. Members of the committee are already working on a focused effort to submit LGBT-related papers and symposia to the SIOP 2008 conference. If you would like to contribute something and are looking for others to join you, please use the discussion list!
Finally, we would like to conclude with a very open invitation to all SIOP members. During our committee meeting and reception in NYC, we were reminded once again that there is some confusion over who is welcome and invited to the SIOP LGBT meeting. It is open to everyone—please come! Feel free to use our meeting and reception as a place to meet and connect with other LGBT folks and allies, as a space that is inclusive and welcoming regardless of one’s sexual orientation, and as a venue to talk about research and practical applications of LGBT-related issues in the workplace.
If you have any questions about our committee and/or would like information about joining the committee itself, feel free to contact any of us!
Committee Co-Chairs: Mikki Hebl, Rice University
Eden King, George Mason University
Additional Members:
John Cornwell, cornwell@rice.edu
Lyne Desormeaux, desormeaux@comcast.net
Gene Johnson, Johnson_gene@hotmail.com
Belle Rose Ragins, Ragins@uwm.edu