Notes
Society for Research in Psychopathology
Executive Board Phone Conference
Jan 14, 2013
10 am to 11:05 am
Present: Current President Deanna Barch, Past President Lee Anna Clark, President Elect Ann Kring, Treasurer William Horan, Secretary Sheri Johnson, FABBS representative Gregory Strauss, Program Chair Alexandra Burt, Website Development Committee Chair Shaun Eack, Executive Board Members at Large: Elizabeth Hayden, Jutta Joormann, Scott Sponheim, and Diego Pizzagalli (Dr. Pizzagalli joined at during discussion of agenda items 3 and 4)
1) Website committee: The current description in the by-laws specifies two year terms, but it has been suggested that we either change it to three year terms or take out the specification of a term limit and leave that up to the decision of the executive board in consultation with potential committee members.
Current Wording:
“This Committee shall consist of a Chairperson and two additional members appointed by the President in consultation with the Executive Board. This Committee has oversight responsibilities for the content of the Society’s website. The term of membership shall be two years, although initial terms may be for one, two, or three years so that members’ terms may be staggered. The Committee shall be authorized to make minor changes to the website and shall present proposals for major changes to the Executive Board.”
Alternative Wording was approved by a unanimous vote of those present:
“This Committee shall consist of a Chairperson and two additional members appointed by the President in consultation with the Executive Board. This Committee has oversight responsibilities for the content of the Society’s website. The term of membership shall typically be two years. The Committee shall be authorized to make minor changes to the website and shall present proposals for major changes to the Executive Board.
The executive board approved the above change, and the SRP membership will be asked to vote on this proposal.
2) Award Committees: The current wording of the award committees describes all members of the committee as being appointed in consultant with the President and the Executive Board. Dr. Barch noted that this continues to be the standard process for committee Chairs, and that this process has worked well. There have been some gaps historically in whether the Executive Board approved the rest of the committee members. Dr. Barch asked whether this approval is necessary, is the best approach (presumably we choose a committee chair because we trust their judgment), or is the most efficient process (allowing committee chairs to make the decision in consultation with the President or the President’s representative streamlines the process).
Current wording:
“These Committees shall consist of a Chairperson and additional members appointed by the President (or by another member to whom the President has delegated this authority) in consultation with the Executive Board. These Committees shall make recommendations to the President or Executive Board regarding the award to individuals, members or non-members of the Society, such tokens of recognition for meritorious contributions to psychopathology as appear warranted from time to time (e.g., Zubin Award, Smadar Levin Award). These Committees may be given individual names such as the Zubin Award Committee or Smadar Levin Award Committee by approval of the Executive Board. The Zubin Award Committee ordinarily shall consist of the President (Chair), Past-President, and President-Elect.”
The following alternative wording was suggested:
“These Committees shall consist of a Chairperson appointed by the President (or by another member to whom the President has delegated this authority) in consultation with the Executive Board, as well as additional members appointed by the Committee Chairperson in consultation with the President (or by another member to whom the President has delegated this authority). These Committees shall make recommendations to the President or Executive Board regarding the award to individuals, members or non-members of the Society, such tokens of recognition for meritorious contributions to psychopathology as appear warranted from time to time (e.g., Zubin Award, Smadar Levin Award). These Committees may be given individual names such as the Zubin Award Committee or Smadar Levin Award Committee by approval of the Executive Board. The Zubin Award Committee ordinarily shall consist of the President (Chair), Past-President, and President-Elect.”
By a unanimous vote of the executive board, the alternative was approved, and the SRP membership will be asked to vote on this proposal.
3) FABBS Issues: The SRP Membership will be informed of the decisions below at the Annual Members Meeting in September, 2013.
a) FABBS dues increase for 2014: $1 per member increase is proposed. FABBS membership dues are based on 103 full members. We have sufficient funds available from dues to cover this expense.
By a unanimous vote of the executive board, this proposal passed.
b) Nominations for the “in memory” and the “distinguished scientist” awards:
The committee decided to balance award nominations to honor scientists studying different types of psychopathology. Further details will be sought before pursuing the nominations.
c) Early Career Award:
SRP has the opportunity to nominate an early career award winner in 2014 and every 3-4 years after that date.
It was decided that the SRP President (which will be Ann Kring in 2014) will ask the 2014 Early career award committee to review our early career award winners thus far (Alexandra Burt, Jennifer Tackett, June Gruber, and pending winner) and decide who to nominate. Note that FABBS does not define how criteria for how many years post-degree a person can be.
d) FABBS website link: FABBS has requested that we place a link to their website on the SRP website.
It was decided that this would be added to the resources library page, and that we would rename that page “resources”.
We will ask members to suggest links for other advocacy organization websites that we might want to feature on our resources web page. Dr. Barch will draft a member survey that notes our interest in identifying nonprofit advocacy organizations with no conflict of interest.
e) FABBS App:
FABBS is interested in creating an app that would list key facts that are compiled by the member society.
Due to concerns about how SRP would identify these facts and the potentially burdensome nature of this mission, we decided not to take part in this initiative at the current time.
f) Workshop: Proposal for member societies to hold workshop with attendance fees at their annual meeting in which a FABBS representative would speak, with proceeds going to FABBS.
Concerns raised included the potential for low enrollment and high costs (room rental, speaker flight, hotel rooms).
Dr. Strauss will ask for more detail about the duration of the workshop, and the expectations for the amount of earnings needed for this to be considered feasible by FABBS staff. If that estimate appears potentially feasible, we will send a survey to members to assess how many might be interested in attending.
4) Associate Member Committee (Chair Dr. Sponheim)
Dr. Sponheim presented a list of potential goals that have been identified and prioritized by the associate member committee. These include:
- Do whatever possible to keep costs low and stable for student.
- Consider an oral paper session for graduate students.
- Include round table discussions or small informative lunch gatherings
- Have a student page that is clearly marked and easily accessed on the web page.
- Have all student posters on Thursday to give them a jumpstart on networking
- Have a student list serve which is moderated/filtered for submissions.
- Better organize and categorize the Resources section on the web page.
- Facilitate room sharing and transportation sharing for thrifty students. (note: already established)
It was noted that the suggestion #1 is an ongoing goal of the society.
It was agreed that the suggestion #2 noted merits further discussion. Ideas about allocating one of the triple track sessions to graduate student presenters or scheduling a graduate student symposium during a lunch period both raised concerns about the possibility of low attendance. One possibility would be to allow one graduate student presentation per symposium. This idea is slated for review during the Oakland meeting.
Suggestion # 3 could be facilitated by surveying members about their willingness to take part, and then inviting graduate students to sign up for lunches at local restaurants with those topic hosts. Dr. Sponheim will identify two student volunteers to work with the program committee on implementation of this idea.
Suggestions #4 and #6 were recently pursued by SSCP. Dr. Sponheim will get feedback from SSCP members about the success of this approach. It was noted that success would likely depend on highly engaged student volunteers who would maintain the website. Dr. Hayden will send Dr. Sponheim contact information for the individuals who were involved in these SSCP efforts.
Being out of time, the meeting was adjourned. Dr. Barch will poll the Exec Board for additional times to complete the meeting.