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In general The CEMRRAT Five-Year Plan to guide APA's efforts in the area of ethnic minority
recruitment, retention, and training is presented at the end of this Final Report. In general, the
plan identifies specific tasks, timelines, and responsible entities necessary for institutionalizing
ethnic minority recruitment, retention and graduation, and education and training efforts at all
levels within and outside of APA.
The plan primarily focuses on various systemic issues that the Commission did not address due to
its limited authorized tenure. Such systemic issues reflect the negative effects of traditional and
often institutionalized attitudes, behaviors, and mores that continuously confront ethnic minority
students and faculty in psychology. Thus, issues addressed by the plan tend to be entrenched and
resistant to change-but not unyielding. The Commission believes that improvements in a given
area addressed by the plan will have major implications for improvements in other areas.
The CEMRRAT Five-Year Plan is structured by the following five major goals:
In regard to education and training
The plan's major related objectives are as follow.
1. Evaluate the quality of treatment given to multicultural issues in textbooks and
teaching/learning aids and inform the discipline of the status of the presentation and treatment of
minority issues in existing textbooks.
2. Help psychology trainers, educators, and researchers to become literate in multicultural issues
and facilitate the inclusion of multicultural topics in classroom and field experiences through
conduct and sponsorship of workshops and convention presentations.
3. Introduce and/or increase the enforceability of accreditation and licensing standards focused on
services to and research with multicultural populations.
4. Promote the education and training of psychologists for innovative and nontraditional roles to
meet the needs of diverse populations.
5. Affirm and strengthen ethnic minority student interest and talent in statistics, methodology,
research design, and scientific areas of psychology.
In regard to faculty recruitment and retention
The plan's major related objectives are as follow.
1. Improve efforts to identify, recruit, and hire ethnic minority faculty.
2. Improve the retention of ethnic minority faculty.
3. Increase the capabilities of the discipline and the Association to promote mentoring of and
linkages with psychologists of color.
4. Develop resources for actively supporting and promoting diversity in psychology programs.
In regard to student recruitment, retention, and graduation
The plan's major related objectives are as follow.
1. Establish a series of regional networks that would link high school and community college
ethnic minority students and psychology faculty.
2. Facilitate the transition of ethnic minority psychology students at 2-year colleges to 4-year
colleges.
3. Develop pilot networks linking ethnic minority undergraduate students with faculty in graduate
and professional programs in psychology.
4. Institutionalize and expand the mentoring networks.
5. Provide incentives to psychology programs for ethnic minority recruitment, retention, and
graduation activities.
In regard to other diversity efforts
The plan's major related objectives are as follow.
1. Develop partnerships with other disciplinary and higher education associations to promote the
value of and need for diversity in postsecondary education through advocacy, public relations, and
public policy.
2. Identify effective ethnic minority recruitment, retention, and graduation programs and strategies
and associated human resources and costs, and disseminate this information to postsecondary
institutions and disciplinary organizations.
3. Develop a procedure, appropriate for use by a variety of accrediting entities and organizations
of various disciplines, for responding to complaints and concerns related to diversity in academic
and health institutions.
4. Improve APA's data collection system related to ethnic minorities.
5. Increase research and evaluation efforts related to ethnic minority recruitment, retention and
graduation, and training and education.
6. Closely monitor the Five-Year Plan.
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