APA Council Report Jan 97

The APA Council of Representatives met in Toronto with Angelo DeNisi, Irv Goldstein, and Rich Klimoski in attendance. For a change, there was a relatively manageable agenda to cover for the 11 or so hours available (over two separate occasions). While much of the time was spent dealing with "housekeeping" matters or listening to interim reports, there were still quite a few issues of potential importance to SIOP members.

Financial Affairs. The APA staff presented a tight but balanced 64 million dollar budget for the next (1997) fiscal year. The APA buildings continue to be a source of income for programs and initiatives. This includes the dues reduction that Council voted on last February that will allow some SIOP members to get a 25% break on their APA dues next year (about $50) as a result of belonging to other science-oriented professional organizations such as APS or AERA. The APA president's stipend was also increased. Currently the President gets an expense account and a stipend of $15k to offset loss of income during their year of duty. The available data indicates that this stipend amount does not begin to cover the real short fall for anyone whose support comes, even in part, from a private practice. Thus Council approved a motion to increase the President's stipend to $25k. Finally, of potential news value to our members, it also voted to require dues exempt category members (mostly members over 65) to pay a base fee for the member services that they continue to get.

The current APA president, Dorothy Cantor, is a very effective leader. She projected a spirit of respect for all constituencies during Council deliberations while at the same time running a fairly "tight " meeting. Although she did not put into play the forces that are now affecting the operation of APA, she is presiding over an organization that seems to be doing well in terms of the usual indicators of success-memberships growth and retention, budget and programs. (In fact, the members of Council felt so positive about her that they voted to accelerate the implementation of the increase in the amount of the stipend being proposed for future APA presidents, making it retroactive to include her "tour of duty").

Celebrations. This year marks the 100th anniversary of clinical Psychology (first taught/offered at the University of Pennsylvania) and the 50th for the Division structure within APA. The former was being commemorated through programming and special events at the 1997 Toronto conference. The latter too was represented by some events at Toronto (e.g. a talk given by Jim Farr on Bruce Moore, the first I/O PhD in the U.S.). But the bulk of the Division-focused celebration will take place next year at the conference in Chicago. Look to a report by Laura Koppes in another section of this issue for more details.

APA Organization and Structure. APA policies adopted by Council over recent years (somewhat surprisingly) have not been systematically integrated into a single document. At Council plan was approved to have this initiated by staff and a standing APA committee and to then have the work reviewed and approved by Council itself. While having Members of Council involved in matters of text and documentation will require some coordination and energy, it was viewed as irresponsible to delegate the task given the importance of the final product-the policy manual.

A working group on APA (really a strategic planning group) provided a draft of their recent efforts. These were built around three themes that are likely to direct APA attention in the future: developing a coherent posture regarding the role of Psychology in the era of managed health care, the investigation of new technologies, paradigms or products to better serve its members, and managing the interface between Science and Practice. The issue of the value of having scientifically oriented members of Psychology in APA continues to be on the minds of many at Council. IN addition to being one of the three strategic themes coming out of the report just cited. It was also evident in the "kinder and gentler" deliberations at Council. The needs and perspectives of the nominally "science"-oriented Divisions (Division 14 included) was often sought out during the sessions. Similarly, the role of retaining science-oriented Psychologists in APA was the focus of a special task force convened this summer by the Science Directorate. More on this later in this report.

Educational Affairs. Council approved the procedures it will follow for the recognition of specialties and proficiencies in Professional Psychology. As many of you will remember, this is aimed at providing a rationale and venues for post-PhD training in fairly narrow areas that are likely to be in demand in the market place (talk to Vicki Vandaveer for details the requirements that she help set up to insure the integrity of any and all specialty proposals that are to be submitted under this program). In fact, in a separate vote, Council also approved Clinical Neuropsychology (aka substance abuse theory and practice) as the first specialty in the proficiencies program. This proposal was a very well thought out and rigorous protocol which, if followed by a school or a university, appears like it would prepare Psychologists for an important function in society. As a side note, your Reps to council are wondering if we in SIOP should not identify and nominate specialty areas of our own, lest other groups take the initiative (and perhaps control) relative to key areas of our own professional practice (some examples we thought of include: "Organizational Diagnosis", "Individual Assessment", "Survey Research". Others?).

Professional Affairs. Model legislation for consideration at the State level for the implementation of prescription privileges for Psychologists was approved. Council also supported a statement for the record that would require managed care organizations to make their reimbursement criteria accessible and public.

Scientific Affairs. There were two issues of importance coming under this APA Directorate. The first was a the setting up for a test users qualifications task force. About six moths ago, some members of Council from the Science Divisions noticed that APA did not have any policy regarding who is qualified to administer psychological tests. (Whatever screening is being done has been done by test publishers themselves). They proposed that a task force be set up to look at this issue. At the August meeting, we voted such a task force into being. These was some discussion before and during Council meetings relative to the desire on the part of some test publishers to have a representative officially assigned to the task force but this was not supported as it seemed to some to create a conflict of interest. But it was also true that there was little support to tightly tie representation on this task force to specific constituencies. In general though, your Reps felt that Division 14 interests will be well covered according to the actual motion approved that was approved. Because testing is so basic to I/O research and practice, future SIOP Reps to Council should remain alert as to what develops here. With regard to a second issue, Council voted to accept a report from a task force set up to study the retention and growth of scientifically-oriented psychologists in APA. This task force was chaired by Neal Johnson (Division 3) and staffed by representatives of some of the Science Divisions (including Rich Klimoski from SIOP), some APA Science Directorate staff and, most symbolically, included two individuals who seem deeply concerned with meeting the needs of SIOP members of APA-Arthur Kovacs, Division 42 (Independent Practice) Rep to Council and current APA President Cantor.

This task force met in July to review membership data and to brainstorm ways that APA might keep an APA science practice mix. As a member of this group, I was somewhat surprised to learn that, when it came to retention, the Science Divisions members resubscribe to APA at a fairly high rate (e.g. 94%, compared to 97% of practice people). Moreover, compared to 10 years ago, there is some actual growth of scientifically-oriented APA members (to around 15k members as of the most recent data). Moreover, APA seems to be doing a good job of recruiting new, recently "minted" PhDs coming out of science track programs. But the fact is that there are just not that many new PhD's of this type coming out (Division 14 affiliates notwithstanding). On the other hand, the not-so-good news (for those of us who support APA as a science advocacy organization), is that survey data seem to indicate that as much as 25% of science types are "restless" and susceptible to not retaining membership.

The task force did its best to interpret these trends and then went on to generate a fairly impressive and useful list of recommendations to APA. As noted, in Toronto, Council voted to accept this list and to assign standing committees of APA to perform feasibility studies (one idea-Division 14 members in APA might get a subscription break on JAP) or to implement these suggestions whenever possible. But more importantly, APA's Board of Directors, itself (a sub-group of Council), also voted to put some of its limited budget to support attendance of task force members at these committee meetings in the near future, thus increasing the likelihood of implementation.