In September, Texas A&M psychology professor Leslie “Les” Charles Morey, PhD,began a new appointment as head of the university’s psychology department. He replaces Steve Rholes, PhD, who is returning to the psychology faculty. As department head, Morey will also serve on the college’s Executive Council.

Morey received his doctorate from the University of Florida in 1981 and came to Texas A&M in 1999. His areas of expertise include assessment, diagnosis and classification of personality and psychopathology, personality disorders and alcoholism. Prior to his appointment at Texas A&M, he taught at the University of Tulsa, Yale University, Harvard Medical School and Vanderbilt University.

Morey currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Personality Disorders, and Assessment, in addition to being the associate editor of the Journal of Personality Assessment.

In September, V. Scott Solberg, PhD, was named director of Wisconsin Careers, a career-related curriculum repository within the Center on Education and Work (CEW) in the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education.

As an associate educational psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he is currently on leave, Solberg directed intervention programs and after-school programs for eight years at South Division High School.

In his new post, he plans to expand Wisconsin Careers’ reach to urban communities; for the past 30 years the service has provided quality career curriculum resources to schools and colleges.

“I see my role as designing ways to demonstrate that our resources create the optimal classroom learning environment for helping all youth attain the work-readiness skills necessary to be competitive in today’s world of work,” Solberg says.

Solberg earned his doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is chair of APA’s Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Counseling Psychology and the Journal of Career Assessment.

Gayle K. Porter, PsyD, and Marilyn Hughes Gaston, MD, received a $100,000 Purpose Prize in September in recognition of their work to empower midlife African-American women to improve their heath. The prize is awarded by Civic Ventures, a think tank focused on positive aging. Beginning this year, Civic Ventures is annually awarding five $100,000 prizes and 10 $10,000 prizes to older individuals who work on service-oriented projects that address critical social problems. The winners must have launched their prize-winning projects after their 50th birthdays.

Porter, a clinical psychologist, is a principal research analyst and senior mental health adviser for the Technical Assistance Partnership of The American Institutes for Research. Gaston is a physician and former assistant surgeon general of the United States and recently retired associate administrator for the Bureau of Primary Health Care within the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Because African-American women are dying at higher rates than any other group of U.S. women—and most of these deaths are preventable—Gaston and Porter wrote “Prime Time: The African American Woman’s Complete Guide to Midlife Health and Wellness” (One World/Ballantine, 2001). In 2003, they created Prime Time Sister Circles, which are part health course on exercise, nutrition and stress, and part support group. Meetings in the community encourage goal-setting, peer support and empowerment. To date, 130 women have participated in pilots in three states and the District of Columbia; 68 percent of them have maintained their health improvements for more than a year.

In January, Gerald C. Davison, PhD, will become dean of the University of Southern California (USC) Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and executive director of the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center. He will also hold the William and Sylvia Kugel Dean’s Chair in Gerontology. Davison first cameto USC in 1979 as director of the clinical psychology program in the psychology department, having previously served on the psychology faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Davison currently serves as interim dean of the USC School of Architecture, and as chair of the psychology department in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, where he is a professor. Davison is an APA fellow and is completing his term as president of Div. 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology) and as chair of the executive board of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology. Prior APA work includes service on the Board of Scientific Affairs, the Committee on Scientific Awards the Council of Representatives and the Continuing Education Committee.

His research focuses on cognitive assessment and cognitive behavior therapy, which he helped originate in the late 1960s. His current research program uses a simulated think-aloud paradigm to explicate cognitions and emotions associated with a range of psychological phenomena, including anxiety, depression and hate crimes. Davison asks participants to imagine that they are in various situations, such as having a teacher talk sharply to them. Participants verbalize their thoughts and feelings about the pretend situation after a brief—10 second or so—exposure to it.

Davison’s vision for the USC gerontology school includes enhancing its position as a leader in the field of gerontology and life-span development and creating new interdisciplinary educational and research programs with USC’s other schools.

—E. Packard

Franklin named to endowed chair at Boston College In September, Dean Joseph O’Keefe named Anderson J. Franklin, PhD, the Honorable David S. Nelson Professional Chair in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Franklin will begin his new position within the department of counseling, developmental and educational psychology in January. Boston College trustees established the Nelson Chair in 1995 to honor David S. Nelson, JD, an African-American alumnus, former trustee and U.S. district court judge who advocated for improved minority education, and the school offers the chair to a distinguished professor who reflects the educational aspirations and human qualities Nelson exhibited during his career. Like Nelson, Franklin also advocates for the admission, retention and graduation of undergraduate and graduate minority students. Franklin leaves his current position as professor in the clinical and social psychology doctoral programs at the department of psychology at the Graduate School and City College of the City University of New York. In his clinical work, Franklin studies resilience among people of African descent, and has developed a theory called the invisibility syndrome, built on themes from Ralph Ellison’s classic book, “Invisible Man.” Franklin examines what happens to people confronted by racial slights based on stereotypes about blacks, and his theory helps explain the psychological consequences for African Americans exposed to repeated experiences of perceived racism. Franklin’s work is particularly focused on the status and well-being of black males. —E. Packard