Secretarys Report
Lisa M. Finkelstein
Northern Illinois University
The Executive Committee held its winter meeting on January 28 and 29 in Washington, D. C., following a day of training in both advocacy and media relations at APA. Versions of these training programs will be available for members at the SIOP conference in April, and we strongly encourage attendance.
One main focus of the winter EC meeting was the approval of the nominations for Fellowship in SIOP.
Gary Latham presented the recommendations of the Fellowship committee and the Executive Committee approved these recommendations. Fellows will be announced during the plenary session at the SIOP conference.
Readers of the January Secretarys report may recall that Leaetta Hough was in the process of deciding whether to accept an invitation to join FABBS, the Foundation for the Advancement of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and that the EC was investigating the merits of joining the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, & Cognitive Sciences, an advocacy group. Leaetta did join FABBS and was pleased to report on some innovative ideas they have on the horizon.
Jos Cortina and Lois Tetrick attended a Federation meeting and Jos reported back to the EC that members of the Federation are quite pleased with their membership. At the time of my writing this report, the EC is making the final decision on whether to join this organization.
A change was made to this meetings agenda format such that all EC business was organized around the main categories that emerged from the September Strategic Planning meeting. Thus, we focused on current business and initiatives that contribute to advocacy, visibility, membership, and the synergy of science and practice. Plans were made to put together new committee annual report forms to require committees to think about how their annual work contributes to our goals in these categories. Time throughout the meeting was devoted to the consideration of ways to align SIOP with our strategic goals and initiatives. Items on the recent membership survey were devoted to assessing the general memberships reactions to and input on the strategic plan. The EC is devoted to keeping strategic planning at the forefront of our activities throughout the year. This will constitute a large portion of new committee chair training at the spring EC meeting.
Dave Nershi updated the group on the status of the many great changes that the Administrative Office has been putting into action. The new online membership directory is now available and will be replacing the paper version next year. A Web site design company has been contracted, and by the time you are reading this, work should be well underway toward vast improvements to our Web site.
EC approved several action items throughout the meeting. A proposal for an International Caf at SIOP was approved. This will be an event early in the conference to orient our international members to the conference and provide networking opportunities. The committee also voted to approve bylaws changes that will be presented for vote to the general membership at the plenary session. A proposal for an LBGT-focused research award is approved to be passed on to the Awards Committee for further consideration. A motion to grant limited in-state tuition assistance to employees of SIOP was also approved.
One important change to the SIOP governance process was approved that should be of great interest to anyone reading this right now who is eager to know more specifics about what the EC, as well as the myriad committees that comprise SIOP governance, are doing with their time. In an effort to initiate greater transparency to the members, committee reports and EC minutes will soon be available to all members on the Web site. Until now, many reports have been password protected for EC members only. Coming soon, any paid member of SIOP interested in learning more about what is happening will soon have easy access to increased information. As always, though, if you have any questions or comments about this report of current EC activities, or any other issue regarding the workings of our organization, feel free to send me an e-mail at
lisaf@niu.edu.
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