Celia W. Chandler
California School of Professional Psychology-San Diego

The I-O graduate students from the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP)-San Diego had the honor of hosting the 19^th Annual Industrial Organizational/Organizational Behavior (IO/OB) Graduate Student Conference. Despite the atypical weather in San Diego, the conference was a great success and carried on the tradition of IO/OB Graduate Student Conference excellence.

The IO/OB Graduate Student Conference is a national meeting for graduate students enrolled in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Organizational Behavior, and Human Resource Management programs. The conference primarily consists of student paper presentations and keynote addresses, workshops, and panels led by professionals in the field. In addition, the conference provides graduate students a great opportunity to meet each other and collaborate on current research.

The 1998 IO/OB Conference aimed to provide attendees with new perspectives in the field of I-O Psychology. The conference theme, Bridging Boundaries: Excellence in Diverse and Dynamic Organizations, was intended to exemplify how organizations are becoming increasingly diverse. By covering topics related to this theme, the conference encouraged new ways of applying theory and experience to help students understand and address the challenges of organizations in a diversified workforce.

We were proud to have a diverse line-up of keynote speakers attend this year. Ann Howard (Development Dimensions International) got the conference off to a great start with her keynote address, "The Changing Nature of Work." Accompanied by an impressive multimedia presentation, Dr. Howard outlined how organizations need to change to meet the challenges of the 21^st Century. On Saturday, Walter Borman (University of South Florida) enlightened students with his presentation, "Citizen Performance: Its Nature, Antecedents, and Measurement" at the keynote luncheon. Dr. Borman presented his new taxonomy of citizenship performance and described an innovative rating instrument to estimate citizen behavior. Closing the conference was a thought provoking keynote presentation by Russell Cropanzano (Colorado State University). In his presentation, "Looking Backwards at the 21^st Century," Dr. Cropanzano discussed how future I-O Psychologists can better understand how to confront our changing future by looking backwards at our history.

In addition to the keynotes, on Saturday morning a series of workshops addressed a wide variety of topics. Keith Hattrup (San Diego State University) and Matthew O’Connell (Select International) gave a team presentation of their research-practitioner model of personnel selection. In their workshop, "Bridging the Science and Practice of Personnel Selection: From Theory to Practice and Back," Dr. Hattrup and Dr. O’Connell described some of their recent theory-based research on the conceptualization and prediction of job performance. Karen May (Terranova Consulting Group) presented a workshop, "Career Development and Learning." Dr. May instructed students on how they can realize successful career development through the application of knowledge and continuous learning. Placida Gallegos (Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group) discussed how our identities impact our profession in her workshop, "Self as an Instrument in Consulting Practice."

Saturday afternoon we had two panel discussions. Leanne Atwater (Arizona State University-West), Jeanette Cleveland (Colorado State University), Steve Dockstader (Productivity Management Systems) and Delbert Nebeker (CSPP-San Diego) discussed performance appraisal. The speakers presented their research in the area and proposed their arguments on how performance appraisal should be conducted. The other panel discussion, "Bringing All of Ourselves to Work: Professional Development for a Diverse Workplace," featured Bernardo Ferdman (CSPP-San Diego), Barbara Gutek (University of Arizona), Mark Maier (Chapman University), and Kecia Thomas (University of Georgia) sharing their experiences and ideas about the links between diversity and effectiveness in the workplace.

Finally, the afternoon included some friendly competition; a game of IO/OB Jeopardy. The team of students from Wright State University and Penn State University were this year’s champions. Awards were also given to the winners of the best IO/OB papers. Dana Milanovich of University of Central Florida won SIOP’s Wherry Award for the best I-O paper and will present her paper at next year’s SIOP Conference. Brian O’Leary of Tulane University won the Porter Award for the best OB paper sponsored by the OB Division of the Academy of Management.

We had expected that the good weather typical of San Diego would be a special treat for conference attendees, however, El Nino decided to drop in and it rained throughout the weekend! This was unfortunate because we had to cancel many outdoor entertainment activities. Nonetheless, graduate students still found ample opportunity for socializing. Friday night we had a wine and cheese reception accompanied by music from a swing band and Saturday night we toured many of the local nightclubs. The conference provided many chances for those in attendance to learn, present research, meet new colleagues, and even have a little fun in the process.