Society for Research in Psychopathology
Executive Board Meeting
Sunday, September 25, 2011, 8:00-9:30am
Hyatt Regency, Boston
4th Floor, Plymouth Room

Invited Executive Board Voting Members: President Lee Anna Clark; Secretary Sheri Johnson; Treasurer Bill Horan; Executive Board Members at Large: Howard Berenbaum, Kate Harkness, Jutta Jorman, Patty Deldin, Diego Pizzagalli, Bob Krueger, Steve Silverstein, Scott Sponheim; Past-President Michael Pogue-Geile; President-Elect Deanna Barch
Invited as Observers: Local Host Christine Hooker; Program Chair Jack Blanchard; Membership Chair Wendy Heller; Early Career Award Chair Tom Kwapil; Mentor Award Chair Kate Harkness; Financial Investments Chair Marty Harrow; Publications Chair Jason Shiffman; Web Chair Shaun Eack; New Program Chair Jennifer Tackett; New Local Host Patty Deldin

Not present: Jason Shiffman, Jennifer Tackett, Bob Krueger, Tom Kwapil, Wendy Heller, Marty Harrow

1. Welcome: President Lee Anna Clark
2. Secretary Update: Sheri Johnson
Sheri will send a qualtrix survey for the vote regarding bylaws changes discussed at the business meeting, including proposals to change the dues for associate members and the grace period for non-payment

The secretary will also begin to report annually at the business meeting on the number of members who resigned, number who joined, and total members.

3. Treasurer Updates: Bill Horan
316 registered for the conference ($68,750)
190 paid dues during meeting ($ 8,330)
68 banquet attendees who paid a total of $3,960 of the $6,880 costs for the banquet
A total of $72,710 was collected, which provided a surplus of more than $2,500 towards the $68,800 total meeting costs

4. Local Host Update: Christine Hooker
Board members expressed appreciation for the excellent planning that Christine conducted.

At this meeting, there have been requests from members for more snacks at breaks or juice at breakfast. We would have lost money by having more snacks or poster session appetizers at the poster session. It is recommended that local hosts be encouraged to contact the executive committee if there are expenses that would be nice to cover that might mean that the meeting costs will not be entirely covered by the annual registration and banquet tickets. The executive committee will be positioned to take a long-range view about whether other meetings within a several-year period that will likely be more affordable can offset such costs at more expensive meetings. Bill Horan will assist the board with this planning by providing a summary of the historical costs of meetings, registration costs, advance and on-site registrations.

In Iowa, we offered a lower price for the banquet for students. The board could consider this in the future once they know the estimated costs for the banquet and more broadly for the meeting.

We need a template for finalizing the costs of the meeting to provide for the local hosts.

5. Program Committee Update:

Lee Anna Clark summarized that Jack Blanchard, Jennifer Tackett, Patty Deldin and Lee Anna Clark met during the meeting. The invited speakers will be: Peter Tyrer (ICD-9 Personality Disorders Workgroup Chair, Editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry) and David Kupfer (One of the co-chairs for DSM-5). Jennifer Tackett will be the program chair, and the committee will include Jack Blanchard (past program committee update), Angus MacDonald, Josh Miller, Edelyn Verona, and Kate Harkness.

The list of Zubin Award winners and previous executive board members contains errors. Shaun will forward a corrected version to Jennifer Tackett.

Patty Deldin noted that Ann Arbor (the site of the next conference) is a host for the Army of Women program (http://www.armyofwomen.org/) and also a site of the National Depression Center. Several possibilities were discussed about how to feature these important organizations, including the possibility of a poster presentation or a lunch speaker. These ideas to be reviewed with Jennifer Tackett as program chair.

6. Membership Update: No updates.
7. Website Update: Shaun Eack
8. Publication Update: Jason Shiffman
Jason has already forwarded a newsletter handbook. The current editors would like to phase out next year, and Lee Anna has talked with Vijay Mittal and Emily Durbin who will join the publication committee this year to shadow and learn, and to take on the responsibility next year.

9. New 2012 Committee Chairs for Board Approval:
Local Host: Patty Deldin
Program Chair: Jennifer Tackett
Levin Award Chair: Don Lynam
Early Career Award Chair: Greg Miller
Mentorship Award Chair: Jill Hooley
Financial Investments Chair: Marty Harrow
Web Chair: Shaun Eack

Sheri will ask outgoing committee chairs to send an updated handbook. These and the award winners will be uploaded onto the web. The handbooks will be placed into a “members only” space. Shaun will provide the username and password to anyone who needs access to this space.

There was discussion of the idea of providing a plaque for Smadar Levin winners in the future.

10. Website
Lee Anna noted that there may be a bug in that the Member Update screen does not always seem to appear; however, she has been unable to replicate the error. She will notify Shaun if it happens again.
Dues will now be folded in with registration (although still with the option to pay dues only if a member is not planning to attend the meeting). Shaun will program the website so that the paypal screen shows the appropriate dues based on the membership status, and that the membership spreadsheet will automatically show when dues were paid.

We need cv’s and may need conflict of interest disclosures for speakers to file for CEUs. This will now be part of the submission. The local host will need to verify whether there are any special forms required for the conflict of interest forms for their site. N.B. Conflict-of-interest disclosure forms will not be needed for the Ann Arbor meeting. In the call for proposals, we will need to note that this is a NEW GUIDELINE.

Resources page will be removed as it is not consistently used.
Opportunities page will be automated to send an email to the listserve when something new is posted. Shaun will supply a set of directions for how to upload for the secretary to forward to people when they are confused.

Webpage to be updated to include new awardees.

Newsletters to be added to the webpage.

11. Other New Business

Stew Shankman has offered to host in 2014 in Chicago.
Alex Cohen has offered to host in 2015 in New Orleans. Sheri will write him to see if he could hold the meeting in later October or early November to minimize the threat of hurricanes disrupting the meeting.

Bill Kremen has offered to host in 2016.

Sheri will look into liability insurance for the meetings.

The results of the business meeting suggested members feel that it is appropriate for the program chair to be given freedom to increase to up to 6 dual-track sessions at their discretion, with consultation from the local host about room availability. Program chairs also will be reminded that there is a preference for transdiagnostic symposia, as well as for hearing from speakers who did not present in the previous year.

Consideration was given to the idea that program chairs could be asked to include a 30-minute talk from the Early Career Award winner. The chair of the award committee could then provide a brief introduction for the talk.

There was discussion of providing travel awards. Currently, the Smadar Levin winner gets free hotel, registration, banquet this year and the next; runners up get banquet tickets for this year and next. It was decided that now up to 5 runner-ups for Smadar Levin will be offered a $300 travel award. The awards will be labeled to note the honor as “SRP Travel Awards”.

The dues form could include a question of whether persons would like to contribute to a travel award.

It was agreed that the website chair should be provided free registration.

12. Thanks to outgoing (Suzanne King, Christine Hooker, Eric Granholm, Tom Oltmanns) and continuing (Jack Blanchard, Deanna Barch, Wendy Heller members and all others) members.
Adjournment