Bersoff Presidential Award to Multicultural Programs
This award will recognize three graduate departments that successfully recruit and graduate doctoral students who are U.S.-born ethnic minorities as well as U.S. residents born outside of the U.S. in regions such as the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
2013 APA President Donald Bersoff, PhD, JD, has created an award to recognize graduate departments that successfully recruit and graduate doctoral students who are U.S.-born ethnic minorities as well as U.S. residents born outside of the U.S. in regions such as the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. This initiative is a complement to the Suinn Minority Achievement Award, which is an annual award that recognizes programs with demonstrated excellence in the recruitment, retention and graduation of U.S.-born ethnic minority students. The Bersoff Presidential Initiative extends the scope of the Suinn Award globally to ensure that psychology’s workforce adequately reflects and is appropriately trained to work with the increasingly international population of the United States.
The three programs selected to receive this award will each receive $2,500 and be recognized during a special ceremony to be held at APA’s 2013 Annual Convention in Hawai'i.
President Bersoff's vision for these awards is not only to honor the achievements of these exemplary programs, but also to "create a means for programs to learn from each other about how to attract and retain students from other countries and current ethnic minority groups.”
Eligibility
Programs will be assessed for the Bersoff Presidential Award to Multicultural Programs based on the following criteria:
U.S. residents from other cultures and countries/ethnic minority faculty and student representation, e.g., data/percentages of recruitment, retention and graduation, especially over the last five years
Departmental and university climate of support to promote multiculturalism, e.g., mentoring programs, financial and other resources reflecting support
Multicultural-focused coursework and training experiences, such as multicultural research and/or applied experiences/practica in diverse communities; opportunities, including bilingual supervision, for students to develop linguistic competence in bilingual therapy
Placement of students in internship, postdoctoral and early career settings that reflect the need for multicultural competence
How to Apply
In addition to describing a program's qualifications according to the aforementioned criteria, letters of nomination should elaborate on efforts to recruit and retain a diverse class of doctoral students, ways in which they have been successful and lessons learned in those efforts.
Nominations, including self-nominations, are invited from faculty from doctoral departments with a clinical or research focus or both. Every nomination MUST include at least one supporting letter from a current student in the program.
Letters of nomination and supporting documentation should be submitted no later than April 1, 2013, to Sue Houston, Public Interest Directorate, American Psychological Association.
