Please Hold for a Message from Your President Apr 97

As I sit down to write my fourth and last TIP column as SIOP president, I am astonished at how quickly the year has gone. I guess I must have had a lot of fun! When you read this, it will be time for our annual conference, held this year in St. Louis, but I am writing in mid-February and have just returned from the SIOP Executive Committee meeting. Having sat in several days of meetings discussing issues affecting the Society and hearing reports of the activities of our many committees, it is apparent to me why being a SIOP officer can be so much fun. Simply stated, SIOP enjoys the enormous benefit of having a dedicated group of officers and committee chairs whose accomplishments for the Society are many, but who manage to retain their sense of humor and develop an esprit de corps that exceeds that of any other volunteer group I have ever known. (Well, there is a garbage collection crew I work on for the local summer arts festival that may be its equal, but that has unusual extrinsic rewards associated with a job well done.) I want to acknowledge the work of these individuals by highlighting here the major activities of the Society for the past year. I also want to thank the hundreds of SIOP members who have served on our committees, enabling the Society to reach many of its goals. I hope all of you will be in attendance at the conference luncheon in St. Louis when we recognize our many volunteers.

First, let me mention some of the special accomplishments of our committees during the past year. Let's start with documents. David Kravitz chaired a subcommittee of the Scientific Affairs committee (Jim Breaugh, Chair) which wrote an excellent review of the existing psychological and behavioral research on affirmative action. A summary of this document has appeared in the January, 1997 TIP; the full report is also available on the SIOP WWW Homepage and in hard copy from the Administrative Office. The Education and Training Committee (Janet Barnes-Farrell, Chair) has completed a revision of the Guidelines for Education and Training at the Doctoral Level, incorporating the input of many SIOP members concerning the competencies required for effective performance as an I/O psychologist at this level. Debra Major chaired the subcommittee that took primary responsibility for this task. At present the guidelines are being reviewed at APA; we hope to have a final version ready for full distribution soon. SIOP has also entered into an agreement with APA for APA to publish a revised and expanded I/O ethics casebook. The casebook is being edited by Rod Lowman as a subcommittee effort of the Professional Practices Committee (Cathy Higgs, Chair). It is anticipated that the casebook will enter production shortly; a copy will be distributed to each SIOP professional member as a benefit of membership. Special thanks are due to Cathy and Rod for negotiating a contract with APA that is very favorable for SIOP and its members.

The continued development of SIOP's electronic communication resources has been a major task this year. The SIOP Webmaster is Phil Craiger with much able assistance from Jason Weiss. Phil and Jason have developed an excellent homepage that allows members and nonmembers easy access to a lot of Society information. The URL is: http://cmit.unomaha.edu/ TIP/SIOP/SIOP.html. Be sure to give it a look when you're surfing the Web; I know you will be impressed. One of the things that the Homepage can facilitate is communication with colleagues around the world. SIOP and the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychologists have agreed to work together to further collaboration among the two organizations and our members. Our initial concrete effort will be some joint programming at the 1998 APA convention in San Francisco; this can take advantage of the presence in San Francisco of many EAWOP members for the 1998 International Congress of Applied Psychology that I mentioned in my January TIP column. SIOP and EAWOP will also be discussing other possible collaborative efforts during the next year. Please send me any ideas that you have.

Two other special activities have occurred this year, one with a "back-ward" and one with a "forward" orientation. Laura Koppes, SIOP's Historian, has been organizing many activities related to the celebration of the Golden Anniversary of Divisions by APA. The many interesting articles about the history of I/O psychology in the January issue of TIP was one of these. There will also be special sessions at our upcoming conference in St. Louis and even a party to help commemorate this event. Less glamorous, perhaps, but of great long-term importance to the Society has been Laura's work that has culminated in the establishment of procedures to preserve our history through the deposit of SIOP documents and records at the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron. If any of you have any materials pertaining to the history of I/O psychology, please contact Laura; we have gaps in our historical record that we are trying to fill. Some of our biggest gaps are from not so long ago in the 1970s and 1980s.

Our forward-oriented activity is the creation of an ad hoc committee, chaired by Irv Goldstein, to develop strategic guidelines for the SIOP Foundation, which was established last year. The Foundation has the potential to be a very positive force for the Society, but we want to be sure that we are clear on its goals and mission. I am delighted to report that two major awards have been endowed by recent contributions to the Foundation, The William A. Owens Award and the M. Scott Myers Award. Please see the article elsewhere in this issue of TIP by Adrienne Colella (Chair, Awards Committee) on these and our other SIOP awards. The generosity of the Owens and Myers families and their friends and colleagues serves as an excellent model for how we can further the goals of the Society through the Foundation.

In addition to these activities, all of SIOP's committees have been hard at work in their particular domains. TIP, under the editorship of Mike Coovert, maintains its position as the ultimate newsletter. The Frontiers Series (Shelly Zedeck, Chair) and the Professional Practice Book Series (Manny London, Chair) continue to produce excellent volumes displaying the best in science and practice that our field has to offer. The many committees associated with our conference have done another great job; a measure of success can be noted by how quickly our conference hotel block sells out. This year this occurred in early February! Katherine Klein (Chair, Society Conference Committee), Sally Hartmann, (Chair, Continuing Education and Workshops), John Hollenbeck (Chair, SIOP Program Committee), and Steve Ashworth (Chair, Placement Committee) and their many committee members have put together another excellent conference that I'm looking forward to (except for that first Friday morning session). Also, at the conference Adrienne Colella will announce the winners of our various SIOP Awards and Elaine Pulakos (Chair, Fellowship Committee) will present the newly elected SIOP Fellows.

Tim Judge (Chair, APA Program) and his committee have developed an attractive SIOP program for the APA convention in Chicago this summer. They have worked hard to establish a number of co-sponsored sessions with other divisions to take advantage of the diversity of specialties present at an APA convention. Karen Paul and the Membership Committee have been working to improve the application process and to coordinate the traditional "paper-based" procedures with new "electronic" procedures based on our Homepage. They will also sponsor a New Member Social at the conference in St. Louis on Friday, April 11, from 5-6 p.m. The State Affairs Committee (Greg Gormanous, Chair) has been concerned with working with state licensing boards as they seek information about our practice. Jeff McHenry (Chair, Committee on Committees) has solicited volunteers for the many SIOP committees, attempting the herculean task of matching volunteers' interests with committee openings. Please submit the form found frequently in TIP and always on our Homepage if you are interested in maintaining or beginning involvement in our many activities. There is something for everyone!

I also want to thank our elected officers for their help over the past year. Mike Campion (Past President) and Kevin Murphy (President-elect) have provided me with (frequently sought) advice and wise counsel, as have Bill Macey (Secretary) and Ron Johnson (Financial Officer). Our 3 Members-at-Large of the Executive Committee (Wayne Camara, Dick Jeanneret, & Nancy Tippins) function as the core of the Long Range Planning Committee, which has in this year developed an investment plan for the Society, conducted sunset reviews of several SIOP committees, and set in place a task force to consider issues related to SIOP's image and visibility to external constituencies. Our APA Council Representatives (Rich Klimoski, Irv Goldstein, & Angelo DeNisi) have kept us apprised of APA activities and have been excellent advocates for I/O psychology with the various directorates, committees, and boards of APA.

Finally, I must extend sincere and deep thanks to Lee Hakel and her staff at the SIOP Administrative Office. The Society simply could not function without the support that the Administrative Office provides to each committee and officer. The contributions of Milt Hakel to the design and development of various computer systems and templates to ease the burden of increasing size and numbers of services are immense and something that also deserves a loud "Thanks."

The long litany of people I have thanked above (and there are others who have also contributed enormously to the success of SIOP over the past year that I did not have space to thank here) is telling-mostly telling everyone that this is an easy organization to lead. A major task is watching in amazement at all we get done. Another is thanking people. I enjoy that-just as I have enjoyed this year as SIOP President. Thanks!