Welcome to your first issue of the new APA Monitor on Psychology. Based on feedback from the APA community, we have revamped your monthly magazine to give you more of what you want—great science, with more insights on careers and practice opportunities and a fresher, more inviting look. The new Monitor also includes more content on graduate student concerns so that our flagship magazine speaks to all APA members.
This transformation is just one of many APA is making, and it is my privilege to lead the association during this time of change. Transformational leadership involves working with people to identify what needs to change, creating a vision and inspiring people to change, all while maintaining the group's values, motivation, morale and performance. Transformational leaders move a group in the direction of growth and renewal.
Two such leaders came from my hometown of Rochester, New York: Frederick Douglass, who famously said, "Without a struggle, there can be no progress," and Susan B. Anthony, known for the line, "Failure is impossible." Both these leaders kept a laser-like focus on their missions to achieve equity for all. They inspired Americans to bring their best selves to the job of recovery and renewal.
Renewal is defined as the state of being made new, fresh or strong again—to restore, replenish, revive, re-establish, recover. We have that opportunity now with APA, having been through an intense period of self-reflection since the Independent Review was released last year. We know that renewal draws on strengths, while reviving and refreshing those parts in need of change. To learn all we can from this experience will take time.
Nonetheless, we have already put into place many initiatives related to the findings:
- We seated an Ethics Commission of psychologist and nonpsychologist ethics experts to review and make recommendations about the processes and procedures of APA's Ethics Office.
- We appointed a Conflict of Interest Work Group to review our past policies and those of other organizations and to make recommendations to APA.
- We have seated a Human Rights Task Force to examine how to extend and communicate our various human rights efforts.
These are beginning, important efforts toward healing, learning, transformation and renewal.
Now more than ever, we have opportunities to bring psychology to bear on some of the most vexing challenges of our time: improving health care, climate change, and racial and economic equity, among many others.
Let's work together to transform APA into the stronger, more effective association we know it can be. As transformational leader Pope Francis said a few days after the Brexit vote: "Unity is better than conflict. Bridges are better than walls."