Tetrick

This is the last of my presidential columns as I will be turning over the gavel of the presidency to Gary Latham at the upcoming conference. I do hope that you will all give him your support as he continues various activities in support of our strategic plan. Because this is my last column, I thought it might be useful to revisit our Strategic Plan and provide some comments on projects and progress we have made this year, although admittedly at the risk of not mentioning several contributions.

To move toward SIOP’s goal of being a visible and trusted authority on work-related psychology, SIOP has engaged the services of a public relations firm. This is a step that we have considered for many years; now is the time. Be looking for more coverage of SIOP and I-O psychology in the media as a result of this action. I wish to thank Doug Reynolds as Visibility chair and Dave Nershi, our own executive director, for making this happen.

In addition, our APA Council Representatives, Janet Barnes-Farrell, José Cortina, Bob Dipboye, Deirdre Knapp, and Eduardo Salas, have been actively engaged in increasing our visibility within APA. Likewise, I have met with Alan Kraut, the executive director of the Association for Psychological Science to explore ways to increase SIOP’s visibility with APS. I believe that if we want broad visibility, it is critical that we are visible within the psychological community.

Our second strategic goal is to be the champion of I-O psychology to policy makers. SIOP continues to be a member of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, & Cognitive Sciences. The current president of the Federation is our own Leatta Hough, and there are over 20 societies as well as several divisions of APA that are members of the Federation. In fact, there are several societies with whom we might want to partner to put on a science forum such as the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the American Education Research Association, the Society for Computers in Psychology, the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology—to name a few. SIOP in partnership with the Federation sponsored our first science forum in February (actually as I am writing this, it hasn’t actually happened yet) with the topic being aging and work. Ruth Kanfer and Seth Kaplan from Scientific Affairs organized a terrific line-up of speakers (Janet Barnes-Farrell, Jeanette Cleveland, Ruth Kanfer, and Elissa Perry) for this science forum, and Meghan McGowan from the Federation has organized the logistics of the event including invitations to federal agencies and members of Congress and their staff.

There is a link to the Federation newsletter on the SIOP home page if you would like to read more about what the Federation does to advance science. You can also subscribe to receive the newsletter directly if you would like.

SIOP strives to be the organization of choice for I-O professionals. There have been several activities to survey our members to determine what we can be doing to insure that we are the organization of choice. We launched a new journal edited by Paul Sackett with the goal to increase dialogue on a particular topic among our members. Paul especially encourages focal articles and commentaries from scientists and practitioners, so maybe I should have included this as an accomplishment relative to our fourth goal, being a model of integrated scientist–practitioner effectiveness; I guess we can discuss my categorization of this accomplishment under this strategic goal. At any rate, Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice is our new journal.

Gary Latham, president-elect, and I share a desire to increase SIOP’s collaborations with our international sister organizations as well as like-minded organizations in the U.S. Therefore, Gary began one of his presidential initiatives this year to enhance our collaborations with EAWOP and the International Association of Applied Psychology, Division 1, as well as the Society for Human Resources Management. These activities have just begun, but you can expect to see increased representation of these organizations as well as the Society for I-O Psychology—South Africa and the Division of Occupational Psychology of the British Psychological Society at our San Francisco conference. I believe that you will also see many more opportunities to collaborate with our international colleagues in the very near future.

The fourth strategic goal in our strategic plan is to be the model of integrated scientist–practitioner effectiveness that values research, practice, and education equally and seeks higher standards in all three areas. There have been several activities this year that address various aspects of this.

First, SIOP-generated comments on the proposed revision to the Standards for Education and Psychological Testing. This effort was headed up by Dick Jeanneret and Shelly Zedeck with Winfred Arthur Jr., José Cortina, Marilyn Gowing, Jerry Kehoe, Jim Outtz, Bob Ramos, Paul Sackett, and Suzanne Tsacoumis serving on the taskforce. I wish to thank everyone who submitted their comments either to the taskforce or directly to APA. I haven’t heard where this effort currently stands, but according to Neal Schmitt’s message in the Score, the Division 5 Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics Newsletter, the Joint Committee of APA/AERA/NCME appears to still be consolidating the comments they have received.

SIOP also provided comments to the APA revised Model License Act with Judy Blanton heading up the SIOP taskforce consisting of Janet Barnes-Farrell, José Cortina, Bob Dipboye, Deirdre Knapp, and Eduardo Salas. Judy and Vicki Vandaveer also serve on the APA taskforce for revising the Model License Act. I wish to thank everyone who submitted their comments to the SIOP taskforce or directly to APA. The APA taskforce received many comments from many constituencies. My understanding is that they are considering all of these comments and have agreed to proceed more slowly than they had originally planned. That said, the issue is not dead and SIOP needs to consider the pros and cons of licensure and alternative forms of credentialing.

Perhaps one of our biggest efforts every year, which links to all four of our strategic goals, is our conference. This year is going to be really exciting as it is the beginning of our new 3-day format. Doug Pugh, Steven Rogelberg, John Scott, Pete Chen, Suzanne Tsacoumis, Peter Scontrino, Ken Yusko, and Dan Sachau have worked diligently on various aspects of the conference as have so many other SIOP members. The program reflects the best of the science and practice of I-O psychology with several new formats and tracks. The goal of these changes is to better meet the needs of all of our members. I think that you will find the San Francisco conference really exciting beginning with workshops, the doctoral and master’s students’ consortia on Wednesday through Saturday afternoon with a capstone speaker and reception—look elsewhere in this issue of TIP to see who the speaker is.

These are some of the highlights that our members in their service to SIOP have worked on. There are many more activities and many more members who have been involved than those that I’ve mentioned. I do want to express my appreciation for everyone’s contributions this year! The success of our organization, SIOP, depends on our members being involved and that includes you.

I look forward to seeing you in San Francisco!