Candidates for APA President
- How would you work to increase diversity of APA council, states' leadership and division leadership?
APA and our state and provincial organizations have all worked for many years to increase organizational diversity with only limited success. At a time when our culture is becoming increasingly diverse, the face of our organizational leadership continues to be overwhelmingly European and too often male. Based upon my many conversations with members of minority groups, I'm advised that the best approach is to recruit new leadership on a personal level. As president and chair of the Council of Representatives, I would charge each council psychologist with the explicit task of recruiting and mentoring one minority group member into APA leadership.
Government officials and bodies, as well as the general citizenry, need to become more aware and appreciative of the contributions of psychology as a science and practice to their ongoing activities, as well as of our contributions to the promotion of health, education and human welfare. How would you use the media to achieve that goal?
APA has taken an important step by hiring a part-time position whose primary purpose is to insert our research findings into America's mass media marketplace. But we can do better. First, I will establish a presidential commission charged with developing a strategy to encourage psychological research that is directly and immediately applicable to daily family life. The average citizen should readily see how psychologists contribute to their everyday welfare. Let's start with learning how to reduce our divorce rate! Then, I'd get that part-time position up to full time and let them promote psychology to the public in an accessible manner.
