APA Council of Representatives Report

James L. Farr

The APA Council of Representatives met on February 16-18 in

Washington, DC. SIOP Council representatives Jim Farr, Irv Goldstein, and

Rich Klimoski attended the Council meetings which had several items on the

agenda of particular interest to SIOP members.

To the delight of your SIOP representatives, Council passed

overwhelmingly a proposal spearheaded by Bill Howell, Executive Officer

of APA's Science Directorate and long-time SIOP member, that reduces APA

dues by 25% for any APA member who is also a member of the American

Psychological Society (APS) or any organization that is a part of the

Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences (another 16

organizations, including the Psychometric Society and the Human Factors

and Ergonomics Society). This is an attempt to reduce the costs of belonging

to multiple professional organizations and thereby retain in APA some

members who might chose only to belong to another professional group.

APA will also be lobbying these other organizations to offer a reduction in

their dues for APA members, but such reciprocity is not a condition for the

APA dues reduction. Details of this are forthcoming in the APA Monitor,

but its implementation for 1997 is planned at this time.

Council also passed a Statement on the Disclosure of Test Data,

developed by APA's Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment, that

will be provided by APA to members seeking information concerning the

disclosure of test items, responses, and test protocols. The Statement has

been under development for several years and has undergone close scrutiny

by APA boards and committees as well as legal review. It outlines the issues

associated with disclosing test data in a variety of situations and notes the

relevant sections of APA's Ethics Code and other policies and the Standards

for Educational and Psychological Testing.

Council also passed a resolution noting that 1996 is the 50th

anniversary of the formation of divisions within APA. Division 14 (SIOP)

is one of the original divisions so 1996 is our golden anniversary as well.

Activities at both our own conference in San Diego this month and the APA

convention in Toronto in August will

celebrate our 50 years.

Several informational items of interest were noted at the Council

meetings. From SIOP's perspective, there was both good and bad news.

First, the good news - the proposed APA Bylaws amendment concerned with

changing voting procedures on Council was not passed by the APA

membership in voting last Fall (this was the so-called "proportional voting"

method, involving the use of electronic voting procedures at Council

meetings to weight the "yes" and "no" votes of a Division's or state

association's representatives by the actual percentage of allocation votes that

it received in the annual member "10 vote allocation" balloting - see the APA

Council report in the October, 1995 TIP for details). The vote was close and

at this Council meeting both proponents and opponents of proportional voting

agreed to meet to attempt to work out procedures that both sides can live

with. This is an example of a relatively new "cooperative" climate on

Council that has largely replaced the prior adversarial approach taken by

various constituencies when they disagreed. This new climate results in a

more effective Council that can deal more with issues and (somewhat) less

with politics.

Unfortunately, on the bad news front, the results of the recent Council

allocation vote by APA members indicated that SIOP did not regain its 4th

Council seat that it lost 2 years ago. The vote was very close - we failed to

regain the seat by a very small margin. We will have another opportunity to

regain this seat in the Fall 1996 allocation vote. Please cast your 10 votes

for SIOP on that ballot so we can maintain a loud voice on Council.

Related to voting and elections, the nominees for APA President Elect

were announced at the Council meeting. They are Thomas Boll, Patricia

Bricklin, Martin Seligman, Robert Sternberg, and Richard Suinn. Ballots

will be mailed by APA in the Spring for this election.

APA continues to be engaged in a number of activities of

extreme importance to SIOP's members and Council is one of the best

ways to influence those activities. These activities include

revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological

Testing, revision of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists, and

the special science initiative. Please contact any of your Council

representatives if you have concerns or want to learn more about

APA activities.