APA Fellow Nomination Process
APA Fellowship Criteria
Fellowship is a special distinction for those Members who have received a doctoral degree in psychology or a related field from a regionally accredited institution and can show evidence of unusual and outstanding contributions in the field of psychology. Fellow status requires that a person's work have had a national impact on the discipline beyond a local, state or regional level. A high level of competence or steady and continuing contributions are not sufficient to warrant Fellow status. National impact must be demonstrated.
Application for Fellow status is open to any APA Member who meets the criteria of both sponsoring division and the American Psychological Association. Each division establishes its own criteria for nominations to initial Fellow status – sometimes the same as APA criteria, but usually involving additional requisites relevant to that division. Each division is responsible for providing the Fellows Committee with updated division criteria.
Nominations From the Division
The APA Fellows Committee strongly recommends the submission of strong, thoughtful, and well-documented nomination materials.
Each division has its own process for soliciting nominations from its members. Some divisions post a call for nominations in their publication or on their Web site. Others have a more formal or selective mechanism for predetermining eligibility (although APA recommends broad encouragement of application for Fellow status among division members). Each division assembles a committee to evaluate and forward nominations to the APA Fellows Committee.
Early each spring, APA provides Division Fellow Committee Chairs with the materials necessary to complete the Fellow application process, however Fellow Chairs can now download necessary forms and instructions from this site or request print versions at any time. Division Fellow Committees distribute these materials to potential nominees. APA recommends providing ample time for nominees to obtain endorsements, complete all forms, and return nomination materials to the division’s Fellow Committee.
Submitting Nominations to APA
Once the Division Fellow Committee has assembled all materials (applications, endorsement forms and information packets) and determined which nominations to forward, the Division Fellow Chair sends nominations to the APA Fellows Committee via Sonja Wiggins. Deadline for the 2009 Fellow cycle is February 9, 2009. Each division must ensure that nominations are complete, compelling, and convincing. The Division must also predetermine that the nominee is a paid APA Member in good standing and a paid member of the division at the time of nomination.
It is recommended that Division Fellow Chairs make photocopies of all nomination materials and hold until verification from APA that nominees are elected to Fellow status.
Nomination Review
In March of each year, the Fellows Committee carefully considers each Fellow nomination and determines whether to:
a. recommend nominee election to Fellow status,
b. not recommend the nominee for Fellow status, or
c. defer the nomination pending receipt of further information.
