A Message From Your President
Kurt Kraiger
As most of the attendees of the 2009 SIOP conference flew home on Sunday, a historic event occurred: the inaugural meeting of the Society’s Executive Board. Since its inception, SIOP has been governed by a smaller Executive Committee. However, in the spring of 2008, a bylaws vote by membership led to the implementation of a new governance structure that began to be phased in last fall and was fully rolled out as new board members took office with the conference.
Why the Change?
The new governance structure was developed by a 11-person task force named by former president Jeff McHenry. The task force consisted of myself, Dick Jeanneret, Irv Goldstein, Janet Barnes-Farrell, Jim Farr, Milt Hakel, Laura Koppes, Mickey Quiñones, and John Cornwell. The task force began with a review of what was working and not working with the then current structure, as well as benchmarking the governance structure in other professional societies. Interestingly, many leaders of other professional societies and divisions saw SIOP as having the best governing structure. Still, the task force saw several ways in which our governance structure could be improved. Principally, SIOP activities overseen by the committee had grown so broad and complex that a larger board with more clearly defined responsibilities would best serve our members. In addition, the task force recommended the name “Executive Board” rather than “Executive Committee” to better capture the stewardship and leadership responsibilities of the group.
What’s New?
The Executive Committee consisted of the president, past president, president-elect, secretary, finance officer, three members-at-large, and the APA council representatives. Note that all but the representatives are voted on by SIOP members in our winter election. The council reps are voted on by SIOP members who are also members of APA with the elections coordinated by APA in the spring.
On the new Executive Board, the following positions stay intact: president, past president (Gary Latham), president-elect (Eduardo Salas), and the council rep positions (José Cortina, Deirdre Knapp, Ed Locke, Howard Weiss). Then, everything changes. There is no longer a secretary position. The role of the secretary has been principally recording and posting minutes of meetings and serving as a liaison to APA for division correspondence. Minutes are now recorded by a representative of the SIOP Administrative Office, and APA correspondence is handled by the finance officer with support from the Administrative Office. Because APA requires each division to have a designated secretary, the finance officer position has been retitled finance officer/secretary.
The three members-at-large positions were also eliminated and replaced by eight officer with portfolio positions. Members-at-large served on the Executive Committee’s Long-Range Planning Committee, represented membership (at least in a general sense), and oversaw fairly broad clusters of committees. For example, when I was a member-at-large, I provided oversight of two book series, the Professional Practice Committee, the State Affairs Committee, and the Scientific Affairs Committee.
The officer with portfolio positions differ from the members-at-large positions in several ways. First, with more positions, there are now more homogenous groupings of committees and functions under the oversight of a single officer. Consider the list of functions just named. The book series are now grouped with our journal and assigned to our Publications officer (Scott Highhouse); the Professional Practice and State Affairs Committees are assigned to the Professional Practice officer (Cristina Banks); and Scientific Affairs, along with institutional research, are assigned to the Research and Science officer (Tammy Allen). The other five positions are Conference and Programs officer (Suzanne Tsacoumis), Communications officer (Doug Reynolds), External Relations officer (Donald Truxillo), Membership Services officer (Lise Saari), and Instructional and Educational officer (Jim Outtz).
What’s Better?
I believe that the transition from the three members-at-large to the eight officers better serves our members in a number of ways. Under the old cluster system, there were several instances in which either parallel efforts were undertaken by different committees under different coordinators, or an important task was not being handled by one committee on the assumption that another committee was working on it. Although that can still happen, it is now easier to hand off new tasks to an officer who in turn can best decide which of several committees is the most appropriate landing spot for the work.
Second, a complaint the task force heard about the former executive committee structure was underrepresentation of practitioners. The inclusion of a professional practice officer position virtually ensures that a practitioner serve on the board, and though there are no guarantees given that each position is decided by an open election, the hope was that more positions could go to practitioners. Note that in the current group, four of eight officer positions are held by practitioners.
Third, in general the larger board ensures more great minds and greater diversity in perspective dealing with the business of the Society. I am continually amazed at the scope of activities either handled directly by, or overseen by, a group of volunteers all of whom have full-time jobs. Did you know that the yearly operating budget of SIOP is close to $2 million? Board members arrived at the spring meeting with a 135-page briefing book! In addition, between meetings there is e-mail discussion among board members on society business on an almost weekly basis. So a larger, diverse board is extremely helpful for serving our members.
Collectively, board members provide leadership and stewardship for the Society, as well as represent the needs and interests of our members. Each of our officers stays in close communication with their committee chairs, and this provides an effective means for them to stay in touch with those needs and interests. You are always welcome to provide input as well. The board roster is published in each issue of TIP. If you have an opinion or question, you should always feel free to contact a board member who might be the most appropriate sounding board. You can also contact me directly or follow me on Twitter at K_Kraiger.