Division 3 Executive Meeting Minutes – Angelo Santi

Minutes Division 3 Executive Committee Meeting

Pacific Conference Room Suite B

San Francisco Marriott Hotel

Friday, August, 17, 2007

7:00 – 7:40 p.m.

Present: Howard Egeth (President), Edward Wasserman (President-Elect), Thomas Zentall (Past-President, and APA Council Rep), Nelson Cowan, Ralph Miller, Karen Hollis, Lewis Lipsitt (APA Council Rep), Anne Cleary (Program Chair), Veronica Dark, (Program Co-Chair), Rebecca Singer (Graduate Student Representative), Angelo Santi (Secretary-Treasurer) 

1. President’s Announcements: Egeth reported the results of the Division 3 Election and the appointment of Committee Chairs

Election. The President-Elect is Nelson Cowan (2007-2008). Members-At-Large on the Executive committee: Mark Bouton (2007-2010) and Nora S. Newcombe (2007-2010). Division Representative to APA Council: Emanuel Donchin (2008-2010).

Committee Chair Appointments. Program Committee Chair: Jeremy Wolfe (2007-2008); Fellow Chair: Cathleen Moore (2007-2008) and Mike Young (2008-2009); Awards Chair: Mahzarin Banaji (2007-2008).

Graduate Student Representative. Daniel Brooks (2007-2009).

Early Career Psychologist Network Representative. Jessie Peissig (2007-2009)

2. Secretary-Treasurer’s Report: Membership and Finances

1. Membership. The following table summarizes the membership in Division 3 for the past 7 years. Since 2001, the number of dues paying Members has declined, but the number of dues paying Fellows has increased. Overall, there has been a small decrease in the total number of dues paying members.

The number of student affiliate members, based on available annual reports, is shown in the following table. The number for 2007 only includes the student affiliates that have joined since 2000, while the number for 2006 only includes the student affiliates that have joined since 1999. It isn’t clear what criteria were used in reporting numbers for the previous years.

Between August 2006 and July 2007 expressions of interest in joining Division 3 were received from a total of 46 APA Members and 76 APA Student Affiliates. Application forms were sent out to all of these individuals. During the same period, applications were received from 11 new members, 13 new student affiliates, and 2 new affiliate members. All of these applicants were accepted into the Division.

2. Finances. The following table summarizes the financial data from December 2002 to January 2007. The Division continues to be in excellent financial health. The Executive’s decisions last year regarding new spending initiatives should result in a lower surplus for December 2007.

A number of new expenses will be incurred for 2007. The estimated total expenses for 2007 will be approximately $7,485.00. This amount is greater than our net income for 2007. Consequently, there is likely to be a decrease in our Net Assets for Dec 2007. It should be noted that as of Jan. 1, 2006 APA provides full reimbursement to Council Reps for February Council Meetings and two nights Hotel accommodation during the APA Annual Convention.

3. Approval of Dues Assessment for 2008

It was noted that there hasn’t been a dues increase in 10 years. Following a brief discussion it was decided to increase the dues by $1. Consequently, the dues for 2008 will be $12.

4. Convention Program Chair’s Report

Following a suggestion made last year by Nelson Cowan, this year’s meeting included a combined Symposium and Poster Session. The topic of this year’s session was Memory Dynamics and the Optimization of Instruction. It featured talks by Elizabeth Ligon Bjork and Robert A. Bjork, as well as 13 posters by graduate students and postdocs. It was well attended and very successful. There was agreement that this format should be repeated at next year’s convention. To facilitate this, APA Division Services will store the poster boards that were purchased by the division and used this year. APA Division Services will arrange for them to be transported to the next convention if reminded to do so by the Program Chair.

This year’s invited speakers will be reimbursed $100 for convention related expenses.

Several members of the Executive Committee volunteered to evaluate student posters at the poster session on Saturday morning. They will meet briefly at the end of the session to select the Best Poster for 2007.

5. APA Council Report

Most important to Division 3, a task force has been assembled to recommend ways of making the annual meeting more attractive for science oriented psychologists to attend and present their research. The Task Force will meet in Sept. and will make recommendations for next year’s meeting in Boston.

The most important general issue addressed by Council was the resolution for a moratorium of the involvement of psychologists in the interrogation of prisoners detained as enemy combatants at the detention facility in Guantanamo, Cuba. Although all who spoke argued against the use of torture and other unethical behavior in those interrogations Council discussed whether that goal would be better served by removing psychologist from the process or remaining present to try to influence interrogations. (On Sunday, after both the EC and business meetings, Council adopted a compromise identifying a list of interrogation activities that APA considered to be unethical.)

Council approved of the use of $7.6 million to redesign the APA website to make it more user friendly and accessible to the wide range of clients who use it, including the general public, students, members, and research scientists

Respectfully submitted,

Tom Zentall and Lewis Lipsitt

6. Newsletter Editor’s Report

After the November 2006 meeting discussion about difficulties keeping the e-mail distribution list up to date, Kristi initiated another e-mail discussion with APA about the problem. In short, APA does not seem to have a solution for the difficult problem of keeping up with changing e-mail addresses, and for their suggested solution they will charge us for their assistance.

Mark and I believe that little progress will be made on the difficulty of keeping up with e-mail addresses without communication between Divisions. Kristi has received one or two inquiries from other divisions about how we manage to keep up with e-mail addresses, suggesting other divisions are also struggling. Perhaps another division has a good solution or the divisions could join forces to find a solution.

In addition, Mark contacted Neal Johnson and has taken over responsibilities of the list-serv. Mark is in the process of determining who the list-serv members are and how they use that service. He believes we will ultimately be able to use the list-serv for announcements that come out between newsletter issues.

Respectfully submitted,

Kristi Multhaup and Mark Faust, newsletter co-editors

7. Graduate Student Representative’s Report

Status Report

Student Affiliate Membership:  The membership directory for Division 3 Student Affiliates has been updated but may soon be out of date.  The student representative should update this directory every year to reflect current membership. 

Division Newsletter:  An article entitled “Meet Your Division 3 Student Representative” appeared in Volume 11, Issue 1 of the division newsletter.  This article outlined my responsibilities and initiatives as the student representative and encouraged student membership. The newsletter may be used to facilitate updating student information and to encourage student involvement.

Continuing Initiatives

Student Awards Program:  Student awards should be more publicized.  For example, they could be posted on the website alongside the other Division awards and sent to the Division 3 student listserv once it has been established. The number of applications and posters eligible for Division 3 student awards should be carefully tracked, as should past and previous winners. The student representative should be responsible for maintaining and updating this list. These numbers could provide an indication of student involvement within the Division.

Increasing Student Membership:  Retaining and increasing membership within the Division remains one of the most important goals.  Daniel Brooks and I will work together to come up with some ideas for achieving this goal.

Division Newsletter:  I propose that more articles related to graduate student issues be published in the newsletter.  The student representative should be responsible for generating ideas for these articles and recruiting student members to write them.  Each student representative should also be responsible for writing an article for the newsletter that introduces them and outlines their initiatives soon after being selected for the position (a reoccurring “Meet Your Division 3 Student Representative” article). I propose that student affiliates be asked to share their research for short research briefs in the division newsletter.

Develop Student Representative Materials:  I have been working on developing an official document outlining the responsibilities of the student representative. This packet includes information on previous and ongoing initiatives, as well as other information that will help new student representatives be more efficient during their time as representative. Daniel Brooks and I will work at completing this project. The information in this packet will need to be updated each year by the outgoing student representative. 

New Initiatives

Award and Fellowship Notification: I propose that the student representative be responsible for notifying student affiliates of upcoming APA award and fellowship deadlines. The new student representative and I will work on preparing a list of awards. Notification should be made via email.

Statement from the Student Representative:  My mission as the Student Representative is to help graduate students within the Division get the most out of APA so that they remain members of the organization in the future. I am honored to be working with the EC to accomplish this goal. I look forward to seeing everyone in San Francisco this year.

Respectfully submitted,

Rebecca Singer, University of Kentucky

8. Fellows Chair's Report

This year 9 New Fellows have been elected to Division 3 of APA and 4 Current Fellows of APA have been elected as Fellows to Division 3. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Linda A. Parker, Fellows Chair 2006-2007.

9. APA Presidential Election

The Executive Committee decided not to endorse any candidates for this year’s APA Presidential Election. Instead, the Executive Committee discussed the possibility of inviting this year’s candidates write a brief statement on how their election as President would benefit Division 3. These statements would be distributed via the Division 3 List-serv.

10.  APA Task Force on Recommending Changes to the APA Convention That Would Appeal to  Scientists

Several people spoke up in favor of returning to the Science Weekend concept. Specific suggestions included: Coordination among relevant divisions in creating a program; A brochure listing of relevant talks sent out well before convention; Locating all of the relevant science talks in the same building at the convention; and making sure that LCD projectors are available in all rooms used by the science-oriented divisions.

11.  Graduate Student Poster Awards for the 2008 APA Convention

There was additional discussion of awards for next year’s convention. It was decided that in addition to a plaque, the winner of the best graduate student poster would receive a cheque for $100. In addition, a second-place award would be made which will also include a plaque.

12.  APAGS Division Student Representative Network

The Executive Committee selected Dan Brooks to be the Division 3 representative to APAGS-DSRN.