Secretary’s Report

Lisa M. Finkelstein
Northern Illinois University

Due to a mysterious e-mail glitch, my report on the Executive Committee’s Fall meeting never made it to TIP.  The suspense is over – this report combines the news from the Fall meeting and the Winter meeting.

Fall Meeting News

The Executive Committee held its fall meeting on September 14–15, 2007, in Rosemont, Illinois. What follows are the highlights of major decisions/votes that occurred at the meeting; details of our discussions appear in the official meeting minutes, available for your reading pleasure on the SIOP Web site.

We kicked off the fall meeting by voting on the award recommendations brought forth by the awards committee. Wendy Boswell and her committee did a fabulous job with this challenging task, and the EC approved their recommendations. You will have to wait until the conference for the big announcement of all the awards. 

Ken Pearlman, our Financial Officer, reviewed the details of the budget and once again reported a healthy financial situation for SIOP. The EC voted to approve the budget for next year.  We also approved a change in our investment policy to allow SIOP more flexibility to invest in longer-term bonds.

Kurt Kraiger attended the meeting to report on the work of the governance task force.  Several changes to the positions on the EC and the clustering of committees were suggested and discussed.  The purposes for the suggested changes are to better align governance with our strategic plan and allow for broader representation of the membership in governance.  Kurt and the task force will be refining the details of the proposal based on the extensive discussion at this meeting and will present the final proposal for approval at the winter meeting.  Stay tuned for more news of the potential exciting changes on the horizon, and thanks goes to Kurt and this task force for their hard work.

Several other issues of interest were brought up at the meeting.  For example, plans are in the works, led by Rob Silzer, for a needs analysis survey for those members involved in the practice of I-O.  I presented a draft of a SIOP master calendar; when this project is complete, it will allow SIOP members to have access of details of the “what and when” of all SIOP committees and to see the big picture of the rhythm of business of our society. I’d like to thank three of my wonderful graduate students, Cindy Cerrentano, Jess Hartnett, and Kristina Matarazzo, for kindly helping me get that together.

A motion was approved for SIOP to join the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Technical Advisory Group (TAG). This will allow SIOP to have influence in the development of international testing standards in the workplace. We discussed the APA model licensure act and the potential benefit to getting SIOP members more involved in their state organizations. We also discussed the great work of the Teaching Institute over the last few years and tasked the Education and Training Committee to work on future plans for helping to prepare underrepresented groups for education and careers in I-O.  We approved the recommendation by Doug Reynolds and the visibility committee to contract with the firm Marketing General to work on SIOP’s brand development, marketing, and PR.  President-Elect Gary Latham discussed plans in the works for expanding our relations with SHRM and EAWOP. All of these developments point toward the increased visibility and influence of SIOP and the profession of I-O psychology.

Winter Meeting News

The Executive Committee held its annual Winter Meeting on January 24–25 in Dallas, TX.  Why Dallas, you ask?  Well, we thought it would be a nice midpoint of the country with mild weather for flying. We thought wrong and flights were cancelled/delayed due to Dallas weather, but we managed to take care of business with everyone eventually arriving.

As usual the Winter meeting commenced with a vote on the approval of nominations for SIOP fellowship.  George Hollenbeck, chair of the fellowship committee, presented an overview of the new online submission and review process, and presented the committee recommendations for EC approval.  Fellows will be announced at the conference.

Kurt Kraiger attended the meeting to update the committee on the final recommendations of the Governance Task Force.  The EC voted to approve the committee’s work with minor adjustments.  Detailed information on the proposed governance changes will appear in TIP and on the Web site, and SIOP members will be given the opportunity to have questions addressed before the suggested changes to the bylaws are put up for an electronic membership vote.

For the remainder of the meeting we reviewed progress on several strategic initiatives (many of which were introduced in the report above).  For example, Rob Silzer has moved forward with the practice survey, and by the time this issue reaches you the data should be in.  President Lois Tetrick discussed SIOP’s response to the APA Model Licensure Act and the group continued its ongoing discussion regarding strategies for meeting the needs of I-O psychologists in regard to licensure. We joined the ANSI TAG, as approved at the fall meeting, and Donald Truxillo attended the meeting in Vienna on the development of international testing standards.  He reported that the focus of the group is more on standards for administration of tests and feedback rather than on development and psychometric issues.  Nancy Tippins will be attending the next meeting in March as SIOP’s representative.

We have contracted with Marketing General in our visibility efforts, as approved in the fall, and they are in contact with the administrative office almost daily, working on promoting the conference and developing stories for the media.

SIOP has worked with the Federation for Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences to put together a Science Forum on Work and Aging, which will have taken place in D.C. by the time you read this.  We discussed ways we can work more closely with both the Federation and APA to demonstrate to Congress, federal funding agencies, and the general public what SIOP members can contribute to important issues facing the world today.

If any or all of this interests you and you need to know more, please see the minutes of the meeting posted online, or e-mail me with any questions at lisaf@niu.edu.  And as this is my LAST secretary report (how did that go by so fast?), I’d like to take a minute to thank Dave Nershi and the administrative office staff for being so incredibly efficient and wonderful to work with. And, I’d like to thank the, um, four or five of you who actually read these, and give a big warm welcome to the new secretary! I’m not sure I’m allowed to spill the beans yet on who it is, but she knows who she is, and I know she will be fantastic.