Presidential Announcements- January 2018Dear SCP Members and Affiliate Colleagues: The new year has started us off with a mixture of blessings and challenges. SCP received a 4th council seat! We have a strong representation of SCP members on the APA board of directors. Thank you all for your commitment to SCP. The #MeToo movement continues to have a powerful influence on the nation. The insidious prevalence of sexual harassment and assault has become explicit. On the other hand, our communities continue to experience challenges from various issues at the national front. Natural disasters – mudslides in California, earthquake in Alaska, and the hurricanes in the Caribbean continue to impact our lives. Shootings seem to continue this year with the most recent one being in Kentucky. NPR reported that the school shooting in Kentucky was the 11th in 2018 – just 23 days into the year. https://www.npr.org/2018/01/24/580433745/a-look-at-all-11-school-shootings-that-took-place-in-the-first-23-days-of-2018. Comments about immigrants from Haiti and African, visa lottery systems, ongoing deportation related to DACA recipients continue to create significant trauma. And just yesterday, we heard that the US Census released a statement that MENA will not be included as a category in 2020 US Census data. This is very disappointing news. It is hard to read about and live through such trauma, violence, and loss of lives on an almost daily basis. I encourage you to share resources related to trauma focused counseling but also have discussions regarding how you may be dealing with these issues in your communities. As we look forward to this new year, advocacy, leadership, dialogues, connections and partnerships seem key. With that said, here are some January Announcements: News on the SCP front: SCP Mid-year meeting. The SCP board had its midyear meeting in San Antonio this month and were joined by the Leadership Academy. The board met for 2.5 days discussing procedural, policy, and other aspects of SCP business. In addition, the board also had a thoughtful dialogue about systemic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal issues that influence our work. The board continues to work towards addressing challenging issues, internal and external to our Society and the profession. SCP Strategic Plan. As you may recall, one of my Presidential Initiatives was to start working on a strategic plan for the Society. Co-chaired by John Westefeld and Tania Israel and STG members Mary O’Leary Wiley, Yu-Wei Wang, Tiffany O’Shaughnessy, David Zelaya, the STG worked most of last year developing a process to select an external consultant to help us with this process. At this time, we are contracted with Executive Service Corps a company from Chicago, Illinois with extensive experience in planning. The board met (online) with the consultants at our San Antonio meeting. Next up will be a visioning meeting in early February (this week). The STG along with President Elect Ruth Fassinger, Kerrie Wilkins-Yel (who have recently joined the STG), and Debra Nolan will meet with the consultants in Chicago for this meeting. The consultants will be working with SCP for approximately 10 months to help develop this strategic plan with feedback and consultation from the SCP board and membership at large. More to come on this. Stay tuned. Also, I want to give a special shout out to Rosie Phillips Davis. She was the initial chair of this STG and led the work on this STG until she became our President Elect for APA at which point John and Tania were asked to co-chair. Thank you Rosie!!! And thanks to the rest of the STG for getting us this far through a very thoughtful process. APA President. Speaking of APA presidency, our very own Sandy Shulman is planning to run for APA President. Conferences Winter Roundtable – February 23 – 24, 2018 Register for the 35th Winter Roundtable.! This year’s theme, Nevertheless, She Persisted: Power and Patriarchy in Psychology and Education, underscores the pervasiveness and pernicious effects of misogyny, sexism, and gender oppression, particularly as these forces intersect with psychology and education. Click HERE to register for this year’s conference! Please follow this link for information on the Invited Keynote Speakers for the 2018 conference: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/roundtable/ 2018 Great Lakes Conference – April 13 – 14, 2018 The 2018 Great Lakes Conference will be held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI from April 13-14, 2018. The conference theme is “Respectful Dialogues and Beyond: What Are We Doing?” The website for the conference can be found at http://wmich.edu/greatlakescp. The call for proposals deadline has been extended to February 2, 2018, and more information on this can be found at http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/great_lakes_conference/. Feedback Welcome!
Posted on: February 10th, 2018 |
Best, Arpana