The establishment and building of an academic discipline is a complicated, painstaking process that involves vision and immense labor by generations of the discipline's leaders. As noted in numerous documented histories of psychology, it also involves onerous institution-building that takes the form of developing departments or academic centers for teaching, research, and scholarship in the discipline; establishing scholarly and professional journals and societies; developing numerous standards of professional conduct in such areas as scholarship, research, teaching, ethics; and numerous other efforts.

Once firmly established, disciplines do evolve in response to various changes in social-historical, political-economic, and academic contexts. When such contextual changes are dramatic or buttressed by major economic incentives, the associated changes within a discipline can occur relatively quickly. Within psychology in the United States, such dramatic change occurred in response to the establishment of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1949, a mission-oriented research agency with an applied research emphasis. Consistent with this emphasis, applications for NIMH research and demonstration project funding are encouraged on specific targeted topics whose identification is guided by both scientific interests and compelling national interests (National Academy of Science, 1964; York, 1978). As a result of NIMH funding, major research programs and institutes were established within departments of psychology, the financial underpinning of psychology departments was transformed, and clinical psychology ascended as a specialty area within psychology.

More recently, a similar type of relatively dramatic and rapid change occurred in response to the nation's changing and increasingly diverse workforce and occupational structures. During the past 25 years-as women increased their rate of participation in postsecondary education and men increasingly opted for new occupational roles in expanding professional and technical disciplines (e. g., computer science, business, and law)-psychology became "feminized" in its gender composition. In 1971, women constituted 25% of doctoral recipients in psychology; in 1991, they comprised 61% of such recipients (APA Task Force, 1995).

But more often than not, academic disciplines are conservative entities-rooted in tradition, and tending to welcome change only as a slow, incremental, consensual process. This certainly has been the case for change related to the need for psychology to more aggressively address the needs of communities of color-including dramatically increasing its knowledge and efforts related to the recruitment, retention and graduation, and education and training of people of color in psychology.

Selected key events during the past 75 years related to ethnic minority recruitment, retention, and training in psychology are noted on the following Timeline of Challenge and Progress: The Inclusion of People of Color in Psychology in the United States. This timeline reveals many historical continuities. For example:

• Psychologists of color, with a few recent exceptions, were not at the table when various critical structures and procedures of their discipline were conceived and developed in the United States. Consequently, psychologists of color, again and again, have initiated "corrective action" strategies for including their perspectives and interests and those of communities of color through revision and reform of extant structures and procedures of psychology in the United States.

• Even in the face of the minimalist action inherent in incremental change, psychologists of color have been remarkably consistent over time in their statements of needed strategies for increasing ethnic minority participation in psychology and for ensuring that psychology effectively addresses the behavioral, mental health, and empowerment needs of communities of color.

• Psychologists of color have assumed primary responsibility for constructing structures (organizations, journals, etc.) for ensuring their professional survival and development as psychologists of color.

• The American Psychological Association-especially its Board of Directors and its Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Division 9)-while often the target of criticism, nevertheless has served as an enabler and supporter of efforts related to greater racial/ethnic inclusion in psychology.

• Federal mental health agencies-especially the National Institute of Mental Health and more recently the Center for Mental Health Services-have provided financial support for some of the most critical initiatives related to increased racial/ethnic inclusion in psychology.

But the Timeline also reflects one major shift in the efforts related to the inclusion of people of color in psychology. Those efforts, over time, have become diversified. While efforts in the 1960s focused almost exclusively on African Americans, during the 1970s other racial/ethnic groups found their critical mass-and their voice-within psychology.

As people of color gained their voices within psychology, the various ethnic minority groups continuously demonstrated a most profound understanding of the principles of and interactions among systems intervention, organizational and institutional change, and multicultural dynamics: Psychologists of color exhibited a rock solid commitment to intergroup alliance and cooperation. The 1970s to the present have been marked by an often explicit commitment among psychologists of color to resist attempts to formulate ethnic minority inclusion issues in terms that promote competition for resources among the various ethnic minority groups. Instead, psychologists of color consistently have articulated strategies that are inclusive and pluralistic (both philosophically and politically)-and punctuated with racial/ethnic- and cultural-specificity.

Symbolically, such commitment is most prominently represented by the 1992 establishment of the Council of National Psychological Associations for the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Interests (CNPAAEMI, 1992). This council consists of the presidents of the four national ethnic minority psychological associations as well as the president of APA and the president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues (Division 45 of the APA). The council seeks to address public policy issues of importance to psychologists of color and the communities they serve.

The diversification of efforts related to the inclusion of people of color in psychology is directly related to the nation's changing demographics. Currently, African Americans are the nation's largest ethnic minority group. But as a result of birth rates and immigration, the growth rates of American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanics/Latino(a)s are increasing much faster than those of African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites. Indeed between 1980 and 1992, the nation's White population (not of Hispanic origin) increased 5.5% (from 180. 9 million to 190. 8 million), while the African American population increased 16.0% (from 26. 1 million to 30. 3 million). In contrast, during that same time period, the American Indian/Alaska Native population increased 39.5% (from 1. 3 million to 1. 85 million); Hispanics/Latino(a)s increased 65.9% (from 14. 6 million to 24. 2 million); and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders increased 121.0% (from 3. 6 million to 7. 9 million)

(U. S. Bureau of the Census, 1994, Table No. 18). Indeed, it is estimated that by the year 2055, the United States will be a truly pluralistic nation, with no single racial/ethnic group constituting a majority.

It is the relative swiftness of this contextual demographic change that in the near future-ready or not-will require psychology to undergo radical and rapid change in the direction of dramatically increasing its representation of people of color, and its focus on issues of special import to communities of color. The APA Commission on Ethnic Minority Recruitment, Retention, and Training in Psychology believes that psychology has sufficient resources and resourcefulness to ensure that this change will not be chaotic, disorientating, and threatening, but instead will occur in a planned thoughtful manner that will serve to strengthen and enrich psychology in the 21st Century. To this end, the Commission presents its Final Report.