(Submitted for approval by Board: 08-24-98)

Meeting began at 10:15 a.m. and ended at approximately 4:45 p.m.  (Note: this included a 45 minute lunch break.)

In attendance:  Executive Board Members:  Cary Cherniss (Chair), David Lounsbury, Pat O’Connor, Cliff O’Donnell, Steve Small, Alan Tomkins, and Leah Gensheimer.  (Note:  due to morning commitments with APA committee meetings, Alan Tomkins joined the CPDCRA Meeting at around 12:00 p.m.)

The following is a summary of agenda items, discussions that transpired, and Board decisions.  The minutes are organized as items were discussed.

1.   Welcome and Introductions:     Chair Cary Cherniss welcomed Board members and distributed the meeting’s agenda. A special welcome was extended to new Board members Pat O’Connor and Steve Small.  A brief overview of the Executive Board was provided to the new members by Cary Cherniss (Chair of the Board) and brief personal introductions of all Board members were made.

2.   Review Agenda:     The agenda prepared by Cary was reviewed for any necessary revisions or additions.  The need to discuss the election of the new student representative was added to the agenda.  Further, it was decided that additional items may be added as issues arose during the meeting.  These additional issues would be placed under “New Business”, agenda item 16.
 
3.   Approval of Minutes:     Leah distributed minutes from the last Executive Board Meeting, held during SCRA’s 1997 Biennial Conference.  These included minutes of both the Open Session on May 28 and the Business Meeting on May 31, 1997.  Board members were asked to review the minutes for accuracy and necessary changes, and provide Leah with feedback.  Based on this feedback, Leah will make revisions and send the final version to David who will add the minutes to the Council’s web page.

4.   Treasurer’s Report:     Treasurer Pat O’Connor provided an update on the status of the Council’s budget.  Overall, the financial status of the Council is not very good.  As of this meeting’s date (i.e., March 22, 1998) the balance was $2,077.  Pat indicated that the costs associated with this meeting may deplete the budget.

Pat is in the process of securing from past Treasurer, Marc Goldstein, the list of programs which paid the current year’s dues and those which did not.  The issue of how to handle membership status of institutions which are not up-to-date with their dues was discussed.  It was decided that these institutions would not be automatically removed from the Council’s membership list, rather attempt would be made to personally contact the Directors of these institutions to ascertain their interest in maintaining their membership.  It was recognized that failure of some institutions to be current with their dues may be the result of administrative factors rather than a lack of interest in the Council.  Pat will contact Directors of institutions with outstanding dues to invite them to retain their membership.

Pat also informed the Board that, prior to his departure, past Treasurer Marc Goldstein negotiated with a local bank in Hartford to maintain the Council’s account without charging a service fee.  The Council’s account can be maintained at this bank, regardless of who the Treasurer is or where she/he is located.

5.   Board Officer Elections:  Election of Chair-Elect and Secretary:     Two officer positions needed to be elected, to begin their terms at the conclusion of the 1998 Summer Business Meeting,  Chair-Elect and Secretary.  It was determined that two Board members were eligible for these positions,  Cliff O’Donnell and Steve Small.  Cliff O’Donnell was nominated and unanimously elected as Chair-Elect, and Steve Small was nominated and unanimously elected as Secretary.  Congratulations Cliff and Steve!
 
6.   Report on Council of Chairs of Training Councils (CCTC) Meeting:     As background for new Board members, Cliff provided a brief history of the CPDCRA Executive Board’s involvement with the CCTC.  Cliff first attended the CCTC’s mid-winter meeting in 1996; therefore, for the past two years a representative of the CPDCRA has attended CCTC’s annual meetings.  In the past, the CCTC served primarily as a forum for exchange of information, however, at the 1997 mid-winter meeting, the CCTC decided to become a proactive group .  For instance, last fall (1997) CCTC members helped to organize a conference addressing the internship crisis, focusing on supply and demand issues.

Cliff discussed two issues which were raised during this year’s CCTC meeting warranting attention of CPDCRA.

a.  Clarification on Program Accreditation:  A program in a specific field of psychology cannot become accredited unless the field has been identified as a “specialty”.  If a field has been identified as a specialty then it can apply for accreditation.  The implication for community psychology programs is that such programs do not have to worry about accreditation since, as of the present date, community psychology has not been identified as a specialty field.

b.  Constraints Placed on Clinical/Community Student Internships:  A concern was expressed by CCTC members involved with the education of students in clinical/community oriented programs regarding accredited internships not providing adequate time for community research and related community-oriented training experiences.  There has been an ever increasing amount of clinical hours associated with internships, more than that which is required by APA.  To help address this issue, the CCTC drafted a statement articulating their position on this matter.  The statement appears below.  It has implications for how practicum hours will be counted and may help relieve pressure of students not involved in the direct provision of clinical services, legitimizing their community-oriented activities.

The value of Cliff having attended the CCTC annual meeting was discussed, and the importance of CPDCRA to continue the practice of being an active member of  CCTC was reiterated.  Our presence at CPDCRA brings the community psychology perspective to their table.  Also discussed was the importance of some consistency in who our representative is to the CCTC.  The greater history a person has with the Council, the more he/she becomes part of their culture and the greater likelihood of us having some influence in their process.  In light of these discussions, a motion was raised and unanimously approved to have Cliff O’Donnell continue to serve on the Executive Board of the CCTC for the 1999 mid-winter meeting.  It was further agreed that the Chair-elect  would accompany the previous CPDCRA representative to the annual meeting of the CCTC, to facilitate the transition of our new representative to this Council.

A second motion was made to coordinate, whenever possible, the Mid-Winter Meeting of the CPDCRA Executive Board with the date and location of APA’s annual Board of Educational Affairs Meeting.  Since air transportation for our representative to CCTC will be reimbursed by APA, this would help reduce costs associated with our mid-winter meetings.  The motion was unanimously approved.

7.   Web page - Update:     David Lounsbury discussed the most recent developments with the CPDCRA home page and distributed a comprehensive packet of material containing all the information currently posted on the web site.  David requested that we review the packet and provide him with specific feedback.  Information on the web page includes: current Executive Board, Council membership list, annual reports and meeting minutes, Council by-laws, the most recent survey of Training Programs in Community Psychology, course planning materials (e.g., latest version of the Community Reading List prepared by Cliff O’Donnell and Jim Dalton), and links to SCRA and APA.

Considerable time was spent reviewing and discussing the web site packet and addressing specific questions and concerns raised by David.  Following these discussions, several specific recommendations and actions were proposed.  David agreed to follow-up on each of these suggestions.  These were:

a.  Need to Establish a Permanent Server:  There is the need to find a permanent server for the web site.  Currently, the server is at Michigan State University (where David is).  Suggestion was made to move it to APA Division 27 server.  Apparently APA is willing to maintain web pages.  All the Council would need to do is provide them with the appropriate information.  Laura Wilson is the contact person at APA.

b.  RE: List of Council Members:

1.  Program classification:  re-classify council members by the categories adopted by CPDCRA.  These are:  doctoral clinical/community psychology program, doctoral free-standing community psychology programs, doctoral community/other psychology programs, doctoral interdisciplinary community programs, master’s degree programs, and individual members.
2.  Only list members of the Council:  do not include all programs that were listed in the 1995 Survey of Graduate Education in Community Psychology, rather only list paid members of the Council.   Prior to eliminating programs from the list, contact will be made by Treasurer Pat O’Connor to directors of programs who are not current with their membership dues.  Being listed on our web site will be an incentive for institutions to join the Council.  Program listing of Council members will include a description of their programs and their web site addresses.  Pat O’Connor will provide David with a current list of members who have paid their dues.

c.  Establish Links to Other Sites:  establish links to the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students and the North American Association of Masters in Psychology.  If anyone thinks of other potential sites to link to, contact David who will investigate and begin the process.

d.  Update Reports and Meeting Minutes:  The following missing information will be sent to David by the persons identified below.  Once files are received, David will post them in the appropriate section.
-  Minutes from the 1996 Mid-Winter Meeting:  Cliff will check to see if he has them and forward them to David.
-  Minutes from the 1997 Mid-Winter Meeting and the 1997 Summer Meeting:  Leah has these and will send them to David.

e.  Course Planning Materials:  David will contact Jim Dalton to secure information about the Community Psychology Syllabus Clearinghouse, asking for a brief description of the Clearinghouse and the web site address.

A special round of “thanks” was paid to David for all his work on this project.

Chair-elect Alan Tomkins will run the election this spring.

Student Representative:  The student representative’s term (currently David Lounsbury) will also be up at the end of the 1998 Summer Meeting.  David will contact the past student representative, Becky Campbell, to determine how this election is conducted.

 9.   Feedback on Annual Survey of Member Programs:

Overall reports from the program directors, across program types, were positive.  A substantial number of programs have hired new faculty and program graduates appear to have little difficulty securing employment, many obtaining academic positions and others in a variety of applied employment settings.   Below are highlights from the survey, organized by institutional membership classification.

a.  Free-standing Community Psychology Programs.  Cliff reported that, in general, most of the free-standing community programs were doing very well.  Several had hired new faculty (e.g., Georgia State, University of Missouri-Kansas City, NYU), and recent graduates were securing academic positions.  Interest in the consortium and possible student/faculty exchanges remains high among the programs.  Stability of student applications are somewhat mixed.  For some programs the number of student applicants during the past year was lower than in the past, for others no noticeable change was evident.  There appears to be some interest in the possibility for distant learning opportunities among program directors, however, institutions vary in the extent to which they have the capabilities and technical assistance/knowledge to accomplish this.

b.  Masters Programs:   Pat reported on interviews conducted with two of the Masters Programs,  Central Connecticut State and Sage Graduate School.  Both programs appear to be remaining stable.  Central Connecticut hired a new faculty member in health psychology whose interests overlap in the community areas.  They are also exploring the possibility of starting a program that would cover forensic and criminal justice issues.  Sage is also planning a forensic psychology track to join other tracks in art therapy and community health education.  Students in both programs have strong interest in counseling, since these states are considering legislation to license MA level counselors.  Interest in student or faculty exchanges is tempered by the logistics of accomplishing this.  What might be more doable for masters-level programs are short-term visits with nearby schools.  Regarding diversity training, Central Connecticut offers an elective course on the “Psychology of Minority Groups”, and Sage attempts to incorporate diversity issues into all of their fundamental community psychology courses.   One of the major concerns expressed by program directors was faculty workload.

c.  Other/Community Psychology Programs:  Alan reported on interviews with two of the Other/Community Psychology Programs:  University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Maryland, Baltimore County.  Both programs hired new faculty.  A forensic psychologist (clinical community) was hired at Nebraska-Lincoln, and a new clinical-community and an applied social/behavioral medicine faculty were hired at UM-B.  UNL will be offering an upper-division undergraduate course in community psychology for the first time in several years.  At UM-B, there are two tracks within the Human Services Ph.D. Psychology Program, clinical/community-social and community-social/behavioral medicine.  They also have added an elective course in qualitative research methods.  UNL is interested in student exchanges and has, in the past, initiated international exchanges with an institution in the Netherlands.  Both programs address diversity issues and education through incorporating related material into existing courses.  UNL is currently developing activities using satellite and internet technologies.

d.  Interdisciplinary Community Programs:   Steve reported on interviews with three of the Interdisciplinary Community Programs:  Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University, and School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Two programs hired new faculty, the UW Dept. of Child and Family Studies and Penn State.  The position at Penn State is an endowed chair in prevention research who will play a major role in their new prevention center.  It is anticipated that some major program and curriculum developments will follow with the this new prevention center.  UW’s School of Social Work has restructured its Ph.D. program to involve  a life-span, problem-focused curriculum with major domains stressed being aging, developmental disabilities, poverty, children and youth, and mental health.  There is continued interest among students in applied areas associated with each of these programs.  Recent program graduates have secured both academic positions and a variety of applied positions.  Interest in student or faculty exchanges was expressed by all respondents.  In terms of diversity training, a course on Ethnic Minority Families is offered at UW in the Dept. of Child and Family Studies.  Further, efforts are taken to recruit minority faculty and students, however, all programs reported that more could be done in this area.  There are possibilities for distance learning among these programs.  At UM Dept. of Child and Family Studies, two undergraduate human development courses are offered on local television, and Penn State has a very strong division of continuing and distance education.

e.  Clinical/Community Programs:  Cary reported there have been changes at several institutions that have resulted in the re-direction of some departments’ community-oriented focus. For example, the program at the University of Maryland, College Park, has disappeared as a result of faculty moves and retirements (e.g., Ray Lorion leaving, Ed Trickett moving into Developmental, Forrest Tyler retiring, Bob Steele moving to the Dean’s office).  At Wayne State, Annette Rickel and another faculty associated with the program retired last year, leaving Paul Toro as the only community person.    On a more positive side, Peabody/Vanderbilt’s program has doubled in size as a result of combining with Applied Social.  They currently have two tracks: community/clinical and free-standing community.  Also, Bowling Green has added a community concentration in their clinical program.  Two programs have added new faculty (Berkeley and Wichita State).  Recent graduates of programs have secured a variety of applied positions.  There is strong interest in student and faculty exchanges across programs.   Overall, clinical/community programs appear to offer a variety of diversity training options for their students and faculty.  These include:  hosting a conference on diversity issues in prevention (ASU), maintaining an on-going weekly diversity seminar (UI), incorporating diversity issues into the core sequence of courses associated with programs’ curricula,  offering a weekly colloquium on cultural issues (Berkeley),  bringing in outside speakers (Wichita State), offering a course on ethnic minority mental health (Berkeley), and offering diversity workshops (Rutgers).  Regarding distance learning, many respondents indicated interest in doing it, but were not currently active in this endeavor and were unaware of what was being done in the rest of the university.

a.  Establish a Teaching and/or Program Development Award:  This idea stemmed from a suggestion made by Chris Keys.  Various issues will need to be addressed among which include:  definition of  “program development”, objective of award and parameters, procedures, criteria, etc.  Also a decision will need to be made regarding whether separate awards and application procedures should exist for doctoral and masters programs.  Leah will pull together a proposal for such an Award to present at the Board’s 1998 Summer Meeting.  Cary and Cliff volunteered to work on the Task Force with her, and a suggestion was made to ask Chris Keys if he’d be interested in assisting with this project.

b. Publisher & Undergraduate Awareness of Community Psychology Issue: Revisited:  The frequently discussed topic about the lack of information on community psychology in undergraduate textbooks (such as in general introductory psychology textbooks) was raised.  The Board’s past efforts to address this issue (i.e., the “Textbook Project”) was described.  It was pointed out that the textbook project evolved into the Community Psychology Reading Lists, which were sent to publishers and authors of undergraduate introductory texts.

c.  CPDCRA Pamphlet:  A suggestion was made to develop an informational pamphlet on the CPDCRA to aid in recruitment of new members.  The pamphlet would briefly describe the Council, its mission, general advantages to becoming a member, and application information.  Leah agreed to draft the pamphlet for discussion and feedback during the 1998 Summer Meeting.

Cliff has spearheaded this project which has evolved into the preparation of an edited volume entitled “Employment in Community Psychology: The Diversity of Opportunity”, to be published by Haworth Press.  Cliff  posted a request for manuscripts on SCRA’s listserv.  Sixteen manuscripts were reviewed and will be included in the volume.  The articles illustrate a variety of employment positions, and the authors represent new and more seasoned graduates from masters and doctoral programs. Excellent work Cliff!!

11.  New Membership Development:   Several strategies were discussed for increasing Council membership.  These were:

a.  Contact Community Programs identified in the 1995 Survey of Graduate Education in Community Psychology, which are not currently members, and invite them to join.  Pat volunteered to do this.

b.  Broaden Geographical Base of Recruitment Efforts:  attempt to make the Council more international by contacting community psychology programs in Europe and Latin America.  Cliff provided several specific suggestions e.g., the European Network of Community Psychology Programs.  Pat will follow-up on these suggestions and send a letter of invitation to these institutions.

c.  Contact Known Community-Oriented Individuals affiliated with Various Graduate Programs:  Cary volunteered to contact someone from DePaul University, and Alan volunteered to contact Dennis Fox at University of Illinois-Springfield.  All board members were asked to think about and contact other individuals they know who might be interested in joining the Council.

d.  Generate a List of Applied Developmental Psychologists/Programs who might be interested in Council membership.  Steve volunteered to create this list.

e.  CPDCRA Pamphlet:  As discussed under agenda item 9 Feedback on Annual Survey of Member Programs, under section: Ideas and Suggestions Stemming from Surveys, an  informational pamphlet on the CPDCRA to aid in recruitment of new members will be drafted by Leah for Board member review by the 1998 Summer Meeting.

Regarding the potential opportunities for distance learning by consortium members, Alan suggested that people may not be that familiar with the concept and its educational possibilities.  He suggested Cliff provide a brief description of what distance learning is and its possible applications.  This might help spur additional interest among members.

13.  Prevention Specialization Task Force Report:    Cary distributed the “Report of Task Force on Prevention as a Specialization (August 12, 1997)” and “Specialization Task Force Correspondence Concerning the Report”  (see documents attached).   Cary is the CPDCRA representative to the task force asked by SCRA’s Executive Committee to investigate whether SCRA, in conjunction with CPDCRA, should petition for the designation of prevention as a specialty in psychology.  The task force was composed of:  Raymond Lorion (Prevention Interest Group), Melvin Wilson (SCRA), Cary Cherniss (CPDCRA), and Heather Barton (student representative).  Cary summarized the contents of the Task Force’s Report and his corresponding correspondence with Meg Bond, SCRA President.  In general, the task force recommended SCRA petition for the designation of prevention as a “proficiency”, not as a “specialty”.  The task force argued that:
 “... prevention is closer to a proficiency than a specialty because it is a body of knowledge and a set of activities that can be part of many, if not most specialties.  Furthermore, the guidelines are written in such a way that specialties are conceived as training programs.  Thus, the fear that specialization might lead to an accreditation process for programs is a realistic one.  On the other hand, proficiencies are too narrow to be viewed as programs.  Thus, there is no expectation that designation of prevention as a proficiency would lead to accreditation of programs.”  (Cherniss, August 12, 1997)

The task force believed SCRA should take the initiative in petitioning for prevention to be designated as a proficiency to insure that SCRA is involved in defining the relevant criteria.  The fear is “if another group or division became the custodian of prevention’s proficiency status, the proficiency could be defined in overly restrictive ways”.  It was further assumed that if prevention was designated as a proficiency, this would limit threats of accreditation.

SCRA discussed the task force’s recommendations at their Executive Meeting, together with related comments posted on SCRA-L and comments from the fall membership survey, and concluded that SCRA would not pursue a proficiency in prevention at the present time, believing that the “potential dangers are too unpredictable given the lack of clear consensus among the membership for following this path” (Meg Bond, Feb. 6, 1998). The Executive Council did decide, however, to emphasize SCRA’s “commitment to prevention in other ways and make those efforts visible such that they position us to be a player in any future discussions of prevention” (Meg Bond, Feb. 6, 1998).  To help in this endeavor, the Executive Council of SCRA asked that CPDCRA consider including in the next survey of graduate programs questions regarding existing courses and training experiences related to prevention, for the purpose of identifying common threads and highlighting models of training in prevention.

After some lengthy discussion among Board members about the prevention specialty/proficiency issue and SCRA’s response, it was decided that without SCRA’s support, CPDCRA would not proceed any further on initiating a petition to APA to designate prevention as a proficiency.

14.  Cultural Diversity Training -- Update:   Based on discussions and decisions made during the Board’s last meeting, Cliff has been in the process of:  a) developing a reading list on “Cultural Compatibility”, and b) establishing a resource list of people around the country who would be willing to serve as consultants on the topic of diversity training.  Cliff will continue with these activities. Once a draft of these documents are completed, he will post them on the SCRA-L for feedback.

In addition to the above activities, the CPDCRA included an item on the 1998 Annual Survey of Program Directors designed to investigate the status and nature of diversity education in community graduate programs.  The item was:  “What has your program tried to do in the way of training students (and faculty) to be more effective in dealing with diversity related issues?”   Cary requested all Board members send him information they obtained on this item from the interviews they conducted.  Cary will prepare an article on the status of diversity training in community graduate programs for The Community Psychologist.

15.  Plans for Next Business Meeting and Executive Committee Meeting at APA:     Discussion was held on the timing and logistics of holding the next Board business meeting, i.e., the 1998 Summer Business Meeting of the CPDCRA.  Since few Board members planned on attending the APA conference, it was decided to hold a conference call meeting at the end of August.  Cary would coordinate our schedules by e-mail and identify a date and time.

16.  New Business:     The following items were identified during the course of the meeting and added to the agenda.

a.  APA Issue:  Community Psychological Health Profiling Project:     Alan brought to the Board’s attention an agenda item of  APA’s Spring Consolidated Meetings.  The  Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice (CAPP) is developing a project focusing on profiling the psychological health of communities.  Because of the nature of this project, Alan thought community psychologists might be interested in assisting in this endeavor.  Such involvement could increase community psychology’s leadership and presence in APA.  After some discussion, it was decided that the CPDCRA may not be the most appropriate body to get involved, but perhaps SCRA would be.  Alan agreed to pass on the information to Meg Bond, SCRA President, to see if the Society would be interested in following up on this matter.

b.  1999 Survey of Community Psychology Programs  (Major Survey):     Pat gave a brief background history of the Survey of Community Programs which has been conducted by the CPDCRA every four/five years.  The first survey was conducted in 1985 by Maurice Elias and Jim Dalton, the second in 1989/90 by Greg Meissen and Pat O’Connor, and the third in 1995 by Greg Meissen et al.  The next survey is due to be conducted this year.  The Board discussed steps needed to be done on this project.  The goal would be to have the survey completed for the 1999 Biennial.  This would entail conducting the survey this fall. David expressed interest in taking responsibility for administering the survey.  He will give the issue some serious consideration to insure that the time involved in doing the survey will not interfere with the timely completion of his dissertation.  David will inform Board members of his decision as soon as possible.  The next steps are to contact Greg Meissen for information from the last survey that was done and to draft and post an announcement about the survey (which will be conducted during the Fall of 1998) on the SCRA-L, the CPDCRA web page, and in The Community Psychologist.

Based on a request made by the Executive Council of SCRA (see agenda item 13.  Prevention Specialization Task Force Report ), several additional items focused on securing information about existing courses and training experiences related to “prevention”, among graduate community programs, will drafted for consideration of inclusion in the survey.  Leah agreed to draft these items and forward them to David.