Spotlight on Local I-O Organizations
Michelle A. Donovan
Intel Corporation
In this column weve profiled local I-O groups in a wide range of sizesfrom the largest group with over 400 members (Metropolitan New York Association for Applied Psychology (or METRO) to smaller groups like the Bay Area Applied Psychologists group with 70 members or the Gateway I-O Psychologists with 150 members. In this article we focus on a smaller I-O group, the Atlanta Society of Applied Psychology (ASAP). Despite their small size, they have found innovative ways to connect, network, and reach out to the community. Read on for more details
ASAP: Atlantas I-O Psychology Community
Linda Hoopes
Atlanta Society of Applied Psychology President
The Atlanta Society of Applied Psychology (ASAP) is a relatively low-key but active group based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Founded by a small group of I-O psychologists including
Larry James and Patrick Devine, weve been in existence for over 25 years, and our membership includes faculty and students from several local universities and colleges as well as applied practitionersboth independent and members of small and large firms.
Our major activities include:
Meetings. An annual series of meetings, generally four per year, held on weekday evenings at the Georgia Psychological Association, the state association for psychologists affiliated with APA. We typically draw on local speakers, with recent programs addressing such topics as merging organizational cultures, developing a screening system for armed pilots, consulting practice issues, validation of selection testing, and sports psychologyour last program for 2003 will focus on the recent changes in the Ethical Guidelines. We socialize before and after the meeting, with the presentation lasting an hour or so. The meetings are free to members, with a $5 charge for nonmembers.
Social events. We have one big social event each year, typically early in the yearlast year we held it at a local restaurant, providing food and drink; this year we held it at APEX, an African-American cultural museum in downtown Atlanta, with a caterer providing the refreshments. Other social events are more impromptu, with a time, date, and location announced for people to gather after work.
Directory. We publish a directory of members that lists contact information and interest areas. We try to update this twice a year, but that doesnt always happen. In the past we mailed out hard copies; recently weve begun e-mailing PDF files.
Mailing List. We have an e-mail list, hosted on Topica, which allows members to e-mail other members. This tends to be used for announcements of job openings, requests for information, requests for research participation, and so forth. We have a second announcement-only list that includes people who are not currently memberssome are past members that have moved away, others are people who are not interested in joining for whatever reason but want to stay current on activities.
Continuing Education. We offer one continuing education credit for meeting attendees who are licensed psychologists, arranged through the Georgia Psychological Association. This has boosted attendance, which varies depending on time and topic. As you might guess, we see more tenured people in the critical year before the CE credits are due for license renewals. We also have a group of licensed psychologists (mostly I-O) who have formed a self-study CE group. This is not a formal ASAP activity but is a valuable part of the Atlanta I-O network. The group sets up four sessions per year, including one on ethics, with each session having approximately 1 hour worth of prereading and 2 hours worth of discussion facilitated by one or more of the members.
Current Challenges and ASAPs Solutions
There are three challenges weve faced that perhaps are worth sharing with other local groups.
One of our major ongoing challenges is keeping members (and officers) engaged. We are all so busywe have about 50 active members, but many more that are lapsed members (former members who have not renewed their membership) or potential members we have not yet reached. And because we are spread out all over Atlanta, its hard to find a central place to meet that does not have significant traffic issues for at least some of us. We have experimented with different locations and found it difficult to identify one that will work for everyone. We have conducted surveys regarding best days and times and have yet to find a consistent time and place that works for all. We will continue to experiment and learn about what works and look forward to hearing about what other groups are doing in these hectic times. One real positive for us has been the active involvement of students at the graduate and undergraduate levels.
One recent improvement we have made was the move to electronic media. In the not-too-distant past we had a paper newsletter and directory. We now have a Web site
(www.asapatlanta.org), an electronic directory, and an e-mailing list. This has dramatically cut our operating costs and allowed us to keep our dues low ($40 per year; less for students).
Lastly, we recently created a new position, the outreach officer. This persons role is to look for opportunities to connect with the media to inform them about I-O related issues, maintain a list of members willing to be interviewed or to write articles, and any other activities that will help us connect with the larger community.
We would be delighted to share more information about any of our activities. Please e-mail us at
president@asapatlanta.org, if you are interested in learning more about our organization.
Future Spotlights on Local Organizations
Stay tuned for the April issue of TIP when we profile the Chicago Industrial/Organizational Psychologists (CIOP). We thought it most appropriate to turn to the city hosting SIOP and give you a preview of this very active local Chicago group.
To learn more about local I-O organizations, see http://www.siop.org/IOGroups.aspx
for a list of Web sites. If you have questions about this article or are interested in including your local I-O psychology group in a future Spotlight column, e-mail Michelle Donovan at
michelle.a.donovan@intel.com.
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