2024 Vice President for Professional Practice Candidates

All candidates were asked to provide a brief statement, introducing themselves and answering the following question: 

How would your skills and vision help you contribute to and lead SCP’s efforts to center its new values, uproot anti-Black racism, and promote liberation, in SCP and beyond?

Christopher (Chris) Stults, PhD

I am humbled to be nominated for VP of Practice for Division 17. To start, I am a professor of psychology at the City University of New York and a licensed psychologist in independent practice. I am passionate about training the next generation of practitioners and conducting research with direct implications for practice.

I am also eager to help SCP live out its new values, including dismantling anti-Black racism and all forms of oppression, and lead efforts to expand them beyond the boundaries of our division. When I teach research methods, I remind my students that to observe something - and especially to change something - you must be able to operationalize and measure it. As VP for Practice, I would prioritize efforts to assess how consistently we, as a division, are living up to our values. In operationalizing our values, I will call upon our collective resources to provide programming that specifically addresses these priorities in meaningful and tangible ways, including a series of trainings, webinars, discussion spaces, peer support groups, and resource hubs to effect the changes we desire.

I would also emphasize surveying and engaging our practitioner members, as they often face significant barriers to participating more fully. I am confident these objectives can be achieved, and I have experience in coordinating similar efforts in the past. Specifically, I have held several leadership positions in SCP related to practice, including my current role as the Chair of the Section for Professional Practice, as well as past roles in the Engaging Practice Presidential Initiative and the Special Task Force on Practitioner Engagement. I am also a proud alumnus of the SCP Leadership Academy, a pipeline program for leaders from underrepresented backgrounds.

In closing, it would be my honor to serve and have your vote. Thank you!

Watch Chris' Candidate Video HERE!

Kodee L. Walls, PhD, ABPP

I am honored to have this opportunity to run for Vice President of Professional Practice. I am the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at Indiana University, Bloomington. While my professional career has focused on leadership in university counseling centers, I am running for this position because being a practitioner will forever be the foundation of my identity as a Counseling Psychologist. It is from this foundation and the cultivation of our current and future expertise that our beloved SCP can challenge and dismantle white supremacy in all its forms.

Essential to my professional and personal identity are the values of liberation and autonomy. Holding many privileged identities with intersecting historically excluded ones, I recognize that my voice can be used for good and for harm. Awareness of this balance has come through experience, self-reflection, compassion, and accountability. I remain involved in many institutional, local, and state efforts aimed at creating transformational and sustainable change against anti-Black racism through meaningful dialogues. These dialogues foster a community where people can reshape policies, practices, and institutions. If elected to VP of Professional Practice, I will collaboratively uproot anti-Black racism by 1) elevating the voice of practitioners who are transforming the science of our field into clinical solutions, 2) maintaining extensive continuing education opportunities for our practitioners that, for example, invite the practical application of liberation psychology, 3) comprehensively respond to the transforming needs of our stakeholders - professionals, students, clients, and communities, and 4) maintain curiosity and accountability within SCP.

I am privileged to have served in multiple leadership roles with SCP, including Chair of two sections, Co-chair for Programs, and Co-Chair for Membership. These experiences have amplified the perils of maintaining the status quo and the beauty of centering liberation and connection. I look forward to continuing to serve SCP. 

Watch Kodee's Candidate Video HERE!