Report From the APA Council of Representatives
José Cortina
George Mason University
The APA Council of Representatives met at the APA conference in Boston on August 13 and 17. The Council considered 50 items, and the minutes of the meeting can be found in the Council of Representatives section of the APA Web site. First, I’ll describe the highlights (insert sound of crickets echoing in the darkness, a lonely wind whistling through the desert chaparral).
Now that that’s done, I’ll summarize what happened.
1. The APA Web site. APA dedicated several million dollars to overhauling its Web site. Although the new site won’t be up until the end of the year, we were given a preview. The new site, in addition to being much more attractive, should be much more navigable and will contain more information of interest to APA members. PSYCNET should make it much easier to search for research.
2. Membership. APA membership has been flat or on the decline for some time. As one of the few divisions whose membership is on the increase, SIOP was asked to share membership ideas with other divisions and state associations. Deirdre Knapp and I described the many activities in which SIOP has engaged in order to recruit and retain members through provision of valued resources. For those who aren’t aware, the number of such activities is staggering. Examples are the Junior Faculty Consortium, the Doctoral Consortium, the Master’s Consortium, the Ambassadors program, JobNet, Consultant Locator, New Member Reception, CEMA Reception, LGBT Reception, and International Reception to name a few.
3. Task Force on Future Practice. APA is forming a task force and holding a summit on the future of psychological practice. Details are still being worked out, but for the time being it is enough to say that, thanks to the persistence of President Latham and others, SIOP will participate.
4. The Strategic Plan. The APA strategic plan is ongoing. For those of you who participated in the development of the SIOP strategic plan, I will simply say that it was a walk in the park when compared to the APA process. Council was supposed to settle on mission and vision statements based on input from the last Council meeting in February. Yeah right. Several versions of a mission statement were considered, but those with any specific language had to be discarded. In the end, we agreed to a statement that was adequately uninformative to avoid offending anyone. The vision statement was tabled until the next council meeting.
5. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice. Although it was a formality, Council approved our new journal.
6. IRB Task Force. The Task Force on Institutional Review Boards was formed some time ago to address widespread problems in dealing with IRBs. The task force generated a report and implementation plan that deals with the larger problems that were exposed.
7. Resolution on gender identity. Council approved a policy resolution in which it articulated its support for inclusiveness and its opposition to discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
8. As always, an APA budget was approved. For various reasons, APA will absorb a loss of around $1 million for 2008. Thanks in large part to cost cutting efforts at APA headquarters, the budget that was approved for 2007 includes a sizeable surplus.
9. The International Classification of Diseases and Mental Health Problems (ICD), which is the international counterpart to the DSM, is being revised. APA has approved funds to pay for the temporary relocation of an APA member to Europe so that APA might have a prominent role to play in this revision.
10. Finally, the Division 14 representatives continued to build alliances with other divisions. In particular, we discussed the possibility of using the “conference within a conference” to create a block of joint sessions with Division 5 (Methods). The conference within a conference is an effort by APA President-Elect James Bray to create within the APA conference a smaller gathering that will appeal to scientists particularly. By partnering with Division 5, we may be able to create a block of sessions that will be of interest not only to SIOP members but also to members of all of the scientific divisions.
That’s all for now. The next Council meeting is in February. We will keep you updated.
Your Intrepid Council Reps
Janet Barnes-Farrell
José Cortina
Bob Dipboye
Deirdre Knapp
Ed Salas