Welcome

Dear Colleagues,

One of my primary initiatives as your President is to increase the degree of transparency between SPPP governance and its members. It is too easy for leadership to become siloed from our members, and I believe communication facilitates engagement. Governments of all kinds fare best when they are in continuous conversation with the people whom they represent. To that end, I want to introduce you to our Executive Committee and Board of Directors and share with you a bit about how we go about doing the Division’s business.

Our Executive Committee is comprised of our Division officers and our Council Representatives. For any who don’t know, we run elections for President-Elect every two years. Our Presidents serve a five year term including one year as President-Elect, two years as President, and two years as Past-President. This translates to having a President-Elect in even years and none in odd years, although this year we do not have a President-Elect since I am finishing Stephen Soldz’ term. Next year will be interesting — since Lara Sheehi is finishing her second year as Past President this year, there will be no Past President or President Elect. This means I will be a one woman Presidential Trio! Our other Division officers are Secretary and Treasurer, who serve up to two three year terms. Normally the Division rotates these elections so that we never have a new Treasurer and Secretary at the same time. However, due to transitions happening on our Board, late last year we elected both a new Treasurer and a new Secretary, Greg Stevens and Noemi Ford respectively. I am pleased to report that both Greg and Noemi have been fabulous additions to our Board, and I am thrilled by how quickly they have each been able to acclimate to their roles. 

Rounding out our Executive Committee are our Council Representatives. As you may recall we currently have five representatives to APA Council, but next year will only have four as we lost a seat in last year’s apportionment ballot (you will be hearing a lot about the apportionment later in the year when we hold the vote for the 2028 apportionment). We are so fortunate to have such amazingly hard-working and prolific Council Reps!! I want to introduce you to each of them. Ally Merchant is our most seasoned Rep as she is in her sixth and final year on Council. She is a steady and strong voice ensuring that we uphold our commitment to doing no harm and focus on the ways in which power dynamics continue to enter into our sociopolitical arena. Kritika Dwivedi is in her third year on Council and in her short time she has already introduced several important New Business Items on the Council floor. Her warmth and caring nature along with her ability to forge important relationships with other Reps has been a pivotal contribution to SPPP. Dan Livney is also in his third year on Council. Dan is particularly skilled at synthesizing information and analyzing group dynamics, and we are lucky to have his input on the Council floor. Our two newest Representatives are Marilyn Charles and Jordan Dunn. Marilyn is no stranger to SPPP as she has held many positions in our organization, including being a past President. Her wisdom and incisive nature are a gift to the Division, and I for one am thrilled that she is back in Division governance. Jordan Dunn may be a brand new Council member, but he has already shepherded in one of the most important New Business Items passed at the most recent Council meeting last month and is a real boon to us. 

Turning to our Board of Directors, which is consisted of our Executive Committee members, nine Members at Large, and our Section Representatives, I want to let you know who they each are. Our Members at Large are Laura Barbanel, Dennis Debiak, Lucia Flores, Sheera Harrell, Steven Huprich, Dan Knauss, Maureen O’Reilly-Landry, Warren Spielberg, and Lu Steinberg. Our Members-at-Large represent all of you and are tasked with various leadership responsibilities based on their interests and the needs of the organization. We also have Section Representatives who are elected by their respective Sections and are charged with bringing the needs and interests of their section to the Board. Currently we have Al Brok representing Section I, Georgette Harrison representing Section II, Ruby Branson representing Section IV, and Moshe Brownstein representing Section IX. Rounding out our Board is Bill MacGillivray as our Parliamentarian. Bill has a long history in Division governance including being a past President and also serves as our Publications Committee chair. Last, but most certainly not least, Ruth Helein has served as our Division administrator for over thirty years!! I can tell you first hand that our organization would not function without Ruth and I am so incredibly grateful for her steady presence and her institutional knowledge.

Now that you know who it is that meets, I am going to share with you our schedule of when we are meeting this year. Going back to where I began talking about transparency, you should know that our Board meetings are open to our members. We meet bimonthly on Sundays over Zoom, except for the in person meeting we have in conjunction with our Spring Meetings when they are held in person. Our meetings are scheduled for the following dates: March 8, April 26 (in NYC), June 14, August 2, October 11, and December 13. If you would like to attend please email me or Ruth. While these meetings are open, we ask that should you attend please know that we have a lot of business to attend to in a short amount of time. Therefore we may not be able to invite discussion from members but will have a chat function available to you to ask questions which we will do our best to be able to answer!

Lastly, we are currently looking for someone to co-chair our Membership committee and our Scholars Committee. These are two essential roles and if any of you are interested in potentially taking this on, please reach out to me! I wish each and every one of you a peaceful month, as hard as peace is to come by these days, and next month I look forward to talking about our 45th annual Spring Meeting!

Dana Charatan, PsyD
SPPP President