Secretary’s Report
Tammy D. Allen
University of South Florida
The Executive Committee (EC) held its fall meeting on October 18 and 19 at the Westin in Cincinnati immediately following the Leading Edge Consortium. Brief highlights of the meeting are provided in this report. Detailed meeting minutes are available at the SIOP Web site.
President Gary Latham thanked outgoing EC members Robert Dipboye, Ed Salas, and Janet Barnes-Farrell for their service. Gary also provided information regarding cooperative agreements made between SIOP, EAWOP, and IAAP-Division 1 that are part of SIOP’s continuing visibility efforts. Study abroad agreements are also being developed across our organizations.
At every fall meeting the EC votes on the award recommendations made by the Awards Committee, chaired by Wendy Boswell. The EC approved the recommendations of the Award Committee and commended Wendy for her tremendous work on this difficult task.
Financial Officer Ken Pearlman reviewed the details of the SIOP budget. For the first year in the last several, SIOP suffered a net loss. The majority of the loss is a paper loss due to the decline in the U.S. stock market. However, SIOP on the whole remains in excellent financial health with approximately 1 year’s worth of operating expenses in reserve.
Kurt Kraiger reported that the implementation of the new governance structure is proceeding as planned. The new board will take office in April. Kurt will also be convening an ad hoc committee charged with advancing our strategic advocacy efforts.
Chaired by Jeff McHenry, the Leading Edge Consortium was again a great success. There were approximately 171 registrants this year.
Representatives from Marketing General provided the EC with a presentation detailing the results of their brand development effort and membership survey findings. Marketing General has been working with SIOP to help with visibility and brand identification. The EC will continue to evaluate these results as well as those from the Practice Committee survey. This will be a major topic of discussion at the winter meeting.
Plans for the 2009 conference are proceeding nicely with several exciting guest speakers already secured. Future conference sites were discussed with decisions regarding 2014/2015 to occur by the end of the year.
Other EC votes include approval of a CEMA Best Paper Award, creation of a publications board to oversee all SIOP publications, extension of the APS Program chair position from 1 year to 2 years, approval of a SIOP president travel budget, and cosponsorship of a conference with the California Psychological Association aimed at informing executives how psychology can help business.
As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or comments about this report at tallen@shell.cas.usf.edu.