Division 35 - Society for the Psychology of Women

APA is a 150,000 member organization of some of the most able minds in the world. We have the power to lead the world toward peace and humanity through the science, education, and practice of psychology. I want us to realize the power-that comes by drawing a circle big enough to include all practitioners, scientists, people of color, international psychologists, people with disabilities, women and men, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, ages, religious backgrounds, all psychologists.

I have been a member of Division 35 for years. My first home was within the Section on Black Women. It was there that I first saw powerful women leaders who were determined to make change happen. I am determined to continue that quest. I know that we must bring together the best minds from our science, education, practice, and public interest communities to solve problems, including problems of managed care and prescription privileges. We need evidence to substantiate the practicality and rationality of license portability.

We must bring together the best minds to implement the Science Directorate agenda, PSY 21, a plan to set scientific priorities in APA.

We must include in our powerful circle the best minds - so that we can solve ethnic minority pipeline issues. Who will be the next generation of psychologists? We are aging and we must recruit more psychologists who care about issues that matter.

We need to be concerned with various societal issues, such as pre-K/12. If those who build prisons can determine the future need for prisons by the number of African American males in 3 rd and 4 th grade, then we must deliver strong prevention interventions that say we will not let that happen. We must use the best available psychological knowledge to interrupt practices that are harmful to individuals and destructive to society.

We must include all psychologists who can help us implement the diversity guidelines. We must apply what we have learned as evidenced by the Multicultural Guidelines, the LGBT Guidelines, as well the other initiatives. We must implement the recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on Enhancing Diversity within APA. We must move forward with the Guidelines on Women and Girls.

As President of Division 17 in 1999, I collaborated with the Presidents of 35 and 45 to found the first Multicultural Conference and Summit . It is through collaborations like these that we demonstrated how effective we can be around multicultural matters. Likewise, I will use my discretionary monies to help us build models of collaboration between science, practice, education and public interest, that can be used to take on major problems within APA and society.