Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues

Presidential Initiatives: A. Toy Caldwell-Colbert, Ph.D., ABBP

We stand on the shoulders of giants . This timeless adage strikes me as a fitting reflective response to the triumphs and humbling aspects of the significant contributions and visions of our Division 45 founders.

In keeping with my proposed theme as President, Positioning Psychologists for a Diverse World: Competence, Collaboration and Celebration, standing committees, workgroups and taskforces have been identified and assigned a charged in keeping with our strategic plan. All charges related to the three C’s of my presidential theme and can be found on the website under information on committees. In addition to the committee charges, the following highlights my presidential initiatives and activities since becoming President-elect in August of 2004.

Presidential initiatives and activities include:

Competence:

Work on the co-edited casebook addressing the multicultural competencies. At this point, I am soliciting the assistance of task force/editorial team of Div 45 members to help shepherd this along. This team will work with Lillian Comas-Diaz, President of Div 42, and me on contacting the various practice related Divisions originally identified as collaborating Divisions. I anticipate that this initiative will extend into my term as past-president.
Through a CODAPAR funded grant, we continue to work with Division 42 on the development of an online course and primer to increase practitioner’s multicultural competence. The focus is clinical with the discussion on the application of the multicultural guidelines.
Felipe Castro with the assistance of Norweeta Milburn will draft a grant for a scientific conference addressing the cultural adaptation of prevention interventions that are evidence-based. The Science Directorate is inviting proposals to support scientific conferences. The purpose of this grant program is to promote exchange of important new contributions and approaches in scientific psychology. The conference must be additionally supported by a hosting institution with direct funds, in-kind support, or a combination of the two. We need to identify the hosting institution. The next deadline for applications is December 1, 2005. Grant money ranges from $500 to $20,000 for scientific conferences.
To advance the mission and expertise of the Division through its various resources, we will update the Div 45 website www.apa.org/divisions/div45 to provide current information to respond to requests for information, to needs for resources and to promote competence from the psychology study of ethnic minorities. The President will appoint dedicated webmasters to keep the website current.
The Division 45 journal, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology (CDEMP) will consider expanding journal pages in response to valuable scholarship on ethnic minority populations and increased demand for research in this area. CDEMP is one of the top 4 journals published by APA.

Collaboration:

Planning for the APA Expert Summit on Immigration,“Global Realities: Intersection and Transitions” has engaged most of my attention since the Mid-Winter meeting. What began as a small joint conference in collaboration with the ethnic minority Presidents/President-elects of several Divisions turned into an APA Presidential initiative. APA President Gerald Koocher appointed Cynthia de las Fuentes President of Division 35 and me as co-chairs for the Summit. This collaboration has helped to further heighten the stature of the Division which is in keeping with our strategic plan.

There will be 13 Divisions (12, 12 Sec 6, 16, 17, 35, 37, 39, 42, 45, 51, 52, 53, &54) participating in the one day Expert Summit followed by joint EC meetings February 2-5, 2006 in San Antonio, TX at the St. Anthony Hotel. Early Bird registration (Sept 9 th to Dec 15 th ) will be $135, regular registration (after Dec 15 ) is $150 and hotel rooms will be $139 a night.

A call for posters will be sent to Division Presidents to solicit poster presentations from participating Divisions and the Texas Psychological Association. Divisions will be responsible for determining which of their members will be selected to present posters at the conference. Each participating Division will be allowed 3 posters. Your assistance in identify Division 45 members doing research on immigration issues is appreciated.

Similarly, some Divisions will be asked to coordinate breakout sessions. I have asked Sumie Okazaki to coordinate one Div 45 breakout session on Asian immigrants. We may also be asked to coordinate a second breakout session.

CE units will be offered during the one day conference and we anticipate that Div 17 will be the sponsor.

APA will be underwriting the conference so the Division will neither gain from any potential conference revenues nor bear the cost of any conference deficits.

We have secured a few sponsors, CEMRRAT-2 and ORTHO and there will be others.
Felipe Castro has agreed to draft a CODAPAR interdivisional grant proposal to support planning for a mini-conference on evidence-based practice to be held in 2008. This initiative is an extension of the Joint Midwinter meeting breakout session I led in Alexandria, VA(Feb 2005) involving Divisions 12, 16, 37, 43 & 54. Proposals are due September 1, 2005.
Joseph Horvat, newly elected member-at-large will be launching a partnership with Psi Chi to help foster increased representation of ethnic minorities in that organization, who in turn will be in a position to become members of Division 45. Joe will be working closely with Kevin Cokley, Membership Chair and the New Student representative on this initiative. (See Member-at-Large reports)

Celebration:

Planning is already underway for the culminating events of Division 45’s 20 th Anniversary celebration at the 2006 APA Convention in New Orleans, LA. A meeting was held in Champaign Illinois with 2006 Programming Co-Chairs Sumie Okazaki and Lydia Buki in June.

We hope to identify sponsors to help cover expenses of our proposed activities
A 2006 Anniversary Planning Committee has been formed to assist with the Anniversary Celebration activities.
We will have special 20 th Anniversary certificates printed for incoming and current fellows of the Division.
Martha Banks will work with Bryan Kim and Fred Leong to draft articles highlighting our history for the next two issues of the FOCUS.
We have approach Div 42 to see if they will jointly sponsor the Social Hour to include an anniversary cake. We plan on having printed invitations to invite individuals to the celebration. Preliminary conversations indicate interest in this co-sponsorship.
Plans are underway for recognizing Past-Presidents of the Division in a unique manner
There will be five invited symposia to be named after deceased and/or distinguished EM members e.g., Bernal, Turner, Okura, Payton, Taylor, Tanaka, Guthrie, Jones, and Attneave. The topics of the symposia will be designed to address contributions and area of expertise of these distinguished members.
We would like to see several conversation hours in the Hospitality Suite in New Orleans that will expand our visibility as a key player in addressing issues relevant to ethnic minorities. This is yet another way to foster the goals of the strategic plan.
I would like to review the Saturday evening dance co-sponsored with Div 35 and introduce the possibility of modifications for 2006 and use of a jazz/Creole theme since we are in New Orleans.

Other Activities of the President:

A series of Committees are being formed. I will be handing out the names of committees and committee members during the meeting since I am still waiting to hear from individuals regarding their agreement to serve. In addition, I would like to assign monitors/liaisons to APA Committees and Boards to further support and implement the Division’s strategic plan.
Rhea Faberman at APA has been contacted regarding a special Monitor article featuring Div 45. I am awaiting a follow up on how we will proceed with this article.
Kevin Cokley, Membership Chair has agreed to initiative a membership drive this upcoming year 2006 to grow the membership by no less than 10% but we aspire for a 15% growth (see Kevin’s report). Kevin will also be representing the Division at the APA First Time Convention Attendee’s social hour at this year’s APA.
Doug McDonald and I continue to work on the drafted budget to generate a tool to assist the Division in decision making that will foster the strategic plan and its implementation during 2006. I will be appointing a finance committee to work with Doug. This committee will focus on procedures that will help enhance the Division’s infrastructure which is as one of three strategic goals.
As President-elect of Division 45, I served with Sandra Shullman and John Dovidio as the team conducting a multicultural workshop for APA Council of Representatives presented during the February 19 th Council meeting in Washington, DC.
Dr. Cynthia Belar, Executive Director of the Educational Directorate asked me to serve as a presenter for the upcoming BEA Educational Leadership Conference Dialogues on diversity: Individual, organizational and epistemological to be held in Washington, DC, September of 2005.
I attended the ABPsi meeting in Miami, Florida August 12-14, 2005. I will be prepared to summarize the meeting of the ethnic minority psychological association representatives held Sunday the 14 th from noon to five hosted by the President of ABPsi James E. Savage, Jr., Ph.D.

In support of the Division’s strategic plan and these initiatives, I remain open and anxious to hear from you regarding the 3 C’s for systemic influence within the Division and ultimately APA. Please email me with your thoughts -- caldwellcolbert@yahoo.com.