Q3: APA has been grappling with a number of recent challenges. What is the single greatest challenge facing the association and how would you address it during your presidency?
APA's influence is decreasing among psychologists and the public because we are perceived as being compromised in our ethical priorities and out of touch with psychologists' values and needs. We need to rethink the power structure that perpetuates APA's status quo, excludes ECPs, alienates students and disempowers the marginalized and diverse among us. I believe we must think outside the box, requiring, rather than encouraging, representation among these groups at every level of APA governance. Only if APA fundamentally changes its structure and culture will we change the way we are perceived by the public and the membership.
Q4: What plans do you have to increase membership as well as engagement of APA members and/or help them receive benefits from their membership?
Alongside the steep membership decline is a greater concern: the loss of one-third of our student affiliates, 25 percent of whom are minorities. APA treats this as a marketing problem, asking how we "deliver value" to new psychologists.
We need to ask: What values could this diverse and politically savvy generation of psychologists bring to APA, and through APA to the nation and the world? Let's give students full membership, ECPs places in governance and ethnic-minorities full representation. It's time to share APA with a new generation who will change our organization and profession in ways we cannot imagine.