Twenty Fifth Annual Meeting of the Society for Research in Psychopathology
SRP
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Boston, MA

Invited Executive Board Voting Members: President Michael Pogue-Geile; Secretary Deanna Barch; Treasurer Bill Horan; Executive Board Members at Large: Wendy Heller, Eric Granholm, Howard Berenbaum, Kate Harkness, Jutta Jorman, Patty Deldin, Diego Pizzagalli, Bob Krueger; Past-President Tom Oltmanns; President-Elect Lee Anna Clark

Invited as Observers: Secretary-Elect Sheri Johnson; Members-at-Large Elect: Steve Silverstein, Scott Sponheim; 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 Chairs Jason Shiffman & Deborah Walder; Website Chair Shaun Eack

Welcome: Michael Pogue-Geile

Secretary’s Report (Deanna Barch): Deanna reported that Deanna Barch is President-Elect, Bill Horan is Treasurer-Elect, and Scott Sponheim and Steve Silverstein were elected to the Board. She also reported on the membership dues drive and clean up, which is now complete. She will make one final announcement at the beginning of the meeting.

Treasurer’s Report (Bill Horan): Cash balance was $41,000 at end of 2010. There was a small deficit for the Seattle meeting, not counting dues. Our investments went up during 2010. The continued goals for the future are: 1) merging Paypal and member spreadsheets; 2) using Google Doc to keep multi-user files handy (this has been set up); 3) eliminate duplicate paper receipts when email receipts have been sent; 4) develop a standardized budget report; 5) propose an official switch of treasurer on Jan 1 rather than at the meeting; 6) American express payments (we pay ~$100 a year, and only received one American Express payment); the Executive Board agreed to remove it as an option); 7) propose getting rid of non-Paypal credit cards.

Local Host Report (Christine Hooker): Online registration was good. The budget seems on track. The money we have taken in will cover everything so far. Registration for the banquet this year was fairly poorly up front. We had 43 people sign up, and Christine bought 10 extra tickets with the hopes to sell them. The registration fees for this meeting were higher than past meetings, which reflects the fact that Boston is a more expensive meeting venue than many other venues. There was extensive discussion of the registration costs this year, which were unavoidable due to the price of Boston. Another issue that arose was of tax-exempt status for state sales tax, which we were not able to get. If we can set it up, we may be able to save considerable money.

Program Committee Report (Jack Blanchard): There was a record number of submissions and posters this year: 105 posters at each session. In Boston they were able to take advantage of local speakers (Steve Hyman and John Gabrielli). Jennifer Tacket will be the chair of next year’s program committee.

Membership Report (Wendy Heller): We had a total of 30 up until last night, at which point she received 5 more. Thus, we have 17 applicants for Full members and 18 for Associate Members. This is our second highest year. We voted to approve all of them.

Early Career Award Committee Report (Tom Kwapil): Committee was composed of Tom Kwapil, Don Lyman, and Tim Straumann. We only had 2 applicants this year, despite a number of emails. Jennifer Tackett was selected as the awardee.

Mentor Award Committee Report (Kate Harkness): John Rottenburg and Angus MacDonald were on the committee. This year we will bestow the award upon John Neale. Tom Oltmanns will receive it for John, as he is ill and unable to attend.

Financial Investments Report (Marty Harrow): As of this morning, we had $97,000 worth of investments. We are up about $1500 from where we were last year.

Website Report (Shaun Eack): Things are going well and the website is much more functional. We decided to remove the opportunities section, as most members seem to prefer email. We will be updating the site to include information about deceased members. We need to add two award categories.

Newsletter Report (Jason Shiffman & Deborah Walder): A number of students signed up; there was a great response. The students seem to enjoy the process and there is good support from the membership.

Necrology: John Abela passed away approximately 1.5 years go.

Change of Registered Agent from Don Fowles to Mike O’Hara: Don Fowles retired and he was the official registered agent. It was proposed that this be passed to Mike O’Hara. The committee voted and this was approved.

Survey Monkey account for Sheri Johnson: We will explore whether there is a free option that would be sufficient to allow the secretary to have an instrument to do surveys and voting.

Reappointment of FABBS rep – Eric Turkheimer: Eric is willing to continue doing this.

Change to Mentor Award: There was an issue in regard to individuals being required to train psychopathologists, and there was a question as to whether it just needed to be eminent scientists, or did they specifically need to be psychpathologists. It was proposed that we should broaden the phrasing. Tom Oltmanns volunteered to draft a revised statement.

Handbooks Update: (President, Secretary, Treasurer, Program, Local Host, Membership, Levin Award, Early Career Award, Mentor Award, Newsletter). We need a Mentor one (Kate Harkness), Membership (Wendy Heller), Program (Jack will update), and Newsletter (Jason Schiffman).

CE arrangements: These are being handled this year by San Diego and Eric Granholm. The bad news was that the office was difficult to deal with, as the former person left and the new person was not skilled yet. They were very concerned about conflict of interest, although this is not an APA requirement. University of Michigan will do it for free at the University of Michigan meeting. It was suggested that we include email as a field for all abstract submissions. It also would help to have the CV of all people submitting for symposia or papers. We also could request conflict of interest at the time of submission, which would help to speed up the process of acceptance to make it easier to get CE set up.

Change of fiscal year to calendar year: There is a proposal to move our fiscal year to coincide with the calendar year, which was approved.

Sponsors: It would be useful if local hosts could determine whether their university has any funds to support conferences. There was a discussion of whether book companies would be interested in coming to meetings to set up a table for a fee.

Future Meetings (dates – confirmed?)
2012 Ann Arbor (Patty Deldin) (10/4/12-10/7/12)
2013 Oakland (Sheri Johnson & Ann Kring) (9/19/13-9/22/13)
2014 Chicago (Stew Shankman?) Dates?
2015 San Diego (Bill Kremen?) East Coast?
2016 East Coast?

Meeting Liability Insurance: The secretary and treasurer will look into it. Wendy Heller will call SPR.

Lifetime Membership: We discussed possibility of offering a lifetime membership, but it was felt that the tracking might be difficult.

Banquet Agenda (Introduction - Awardee)
MC: Michael Pogue-Geile
Levin Award: Nancy Docherty - ?
Early Career Award: Tom Kwapil – Jennifer Tackett
Mentor Award: Kate Harkness – John Neale (Accepted by Tom Oltmanns)
Zubin Award: Michael Pogue-Geile - Ian Gotlib
Zubin remarks – Ian Gotlib

Bylaws Issues: There are proposals to make the following changes to the Bylaws:
The following is the procedure for changing the By-Laws:

“With the exception noted below, amendments to or repeal of any of these By-Laws may be proposed by any member or group of members of the Society in good standing by submitting such proposals to the Executive Board through the Secretary. Proposals for amendment submitted by fewer than ten members of the Society shall be considered at the next regular meeting of the Executive Board, and will be submitted for a vote of the membership only if endorsed by the Executive Board. Proposals made by ten or more members will automatically be submitted to the membership as a whole at the next annual meeting of the Society.
Proposals for amendments that have been approved under one or the other of these provisions shall be submitted by the Secretary to the membership using any technology that is currently widely used by the members within sixty days of approval. Upon request and provision of a post office address or fax number or other appropriate number, a member may be sent a paper ballot. A two-thirds vote of those casting ballots shall be required for the adoption of an amendment. Thirty days shall elapse between distribution of the ballots and counting of the votes. For the purpose of adoption of amendments, a quorum of the Society shall consist of twenty percent of the membership. Amendments that are adopted shall go into effect upon notification to the membership by the Secretary, such notification being required. “

a. Should we raise dues for full membership $50 to $75 & keep Assoc dues at $20: At Executive Committee Meeting of 9-26-96 in Atlanta, Georgia the category of Associate Member was established. The following conditions apply:
a. Eligible individuals will include students in Ph.D. training programs or recent PhDs.
b. Applications must be supported by a letter of recommendations from at least one member of SRP.
c. The requirement of at least 2 first-author publications is waived.
d. Dues are set at ½ regular member dues.
e. Associate members are treated the same as non-members regarding eligibility to present papers or posters at annual meetings and in voting.
f.

“The amount of annual dues, membership application fees, and penalties for late payment, if any, shall be determined by vote of the membership at the annual meeting after presentation by a recommendation by the Executive Board. Dues are payable in the first instance upon election, and thereafter annually during the month of July. Any member whose dues remain unpaid by the end of the year in which they fell due will be deemed to have resigned. Any member deemed to have resigned on this basis may be reinstated without further application upon payment of dues for the year in which he or she seeks readmission to membership.“

The committee felt that we did not have a clear justification for raising the dues, and that it would be important to have a good justification for doing so. Thus, we will not propose to raise the dues to $75.

b. Dues grace period – currently 1 yr. Increasing needs by laws change. The Bylaws currently say:
“The amount of annual dues, membership application fees, and penalties for late payment, if any, shall be determined by vote of the membership at the annual meeting after presentation by a recommendation by the Executive Board. Dues are payable in the first instance upon election, and thereafter annually during the month of July. Any member whose dues remain unpaid by the end of the year in which they fell due will be deemed to have resigned. Any member deemed to have resigned on this basis may be reinstated without further application upon payment of dues for the year in which he or she seeks readmission to membership.”

This would require a by laws change: We propose to increase grace period to 3 years. This would require us to change sentence to: “Any member whose dues remain unpaid for more than 3 years will be deemed to have resigned.”

In addition to changing the grave period, we decided to change the way we do membership and dues registration. From now on, we will only allow the following options:

Full member dues + Full member registration
Associate member dues + Associate member registration
Non member student registration
Non member professional registration
Full member dues
Associate member dues

c. The by laws current requires dues for new members due in the year they apply. Do we wish to change this and wait until the year following their application.

“Section 2. Election to Membership. Eligible persons shall be evaluated for Membership by the Membership Committee. Any member may recommend individuals to the Membership Committee for consideration. The application submitted to the Membership Committee shall have the signatures of at least two sponsors who are members of the Society. The Membership Committee shall report its recommendation with regard to each application to the Executive Board of the Society. The final decision to admit to membership or to refuse membership shall be made by vote of the Executive Board. Membership becomes effective as of the date of that vote. Dues for the current year are payable at the date of that vote. Admission to membership of the Society shall be open to all persons meeting the stated criteria for membership, without discrimination on any grounds, including but not confined to, race, creed, color, gender or sexual preference. “

It was decided to tell applicants that the year they apply, they should pay the dues and the registration in the category for which they are applying for that year. This does not require a by-law change.

d. Delay of Treasurer taking office until Jan requires, which may require a by-law change.

“Section 2. Election. The President-Elect will be elected annually on the same ballot as that used to elect members of the Executive Board as described in Article V, Section 2 of these By-Laws. The term of office for the President is one year. The Secretary and Treasurer will be elected every third year on the same ballot as that used to elect members of the Executive Board and the President. The terms of office for Secretary and for Treasurer will be three years. Elections for these two offices will be held one year in advance so that there will be a Secretary-elect and a Treasurer-elect. All officers must be members of the Society. The terms of office for officers will begin on the last day of the annual scientific meeting/”

Upon discussion it was decided that this did not actually require a by-law change since the treasurer-elect serves for 1 year before installation.

New Business Discussion

1. There were a number of people who submitted papers who could not be accommodated. Thus, it was suggested that we either increase the number of symposia/paper sessions that are dual track, or eliminate a speaker and include a paper session or a dual track. There was a general consensus that we did not want to eliminate a speaker. There was some concern that making all symposia/paper sessions dual track would increase meeting costs somewhat, but this was felt to be worth it. We will propose to the membership that we allow up to six dual tracks sessions depending on quality of submissions and availability of space. If approved, we should make sure that the program chair checks with the local host to make sure that there is availability before they assume all possible dual tracks. Leave the proportion of symposia to paper sessions up to the discretion of the chair.

2. There was a discussion of whether we should start including the banquet fee in the registration. There was a general consensus that we did not want to include this in the registration.

Thanks to outgoing members: Past-President Tom Oltmanns; Secretary Deanna Barch, Treasurer Suzanne King, Members-at-Large Eric Granhom, Wendy Heller, and all others

Adjournment