Report from the SPSP Board Meeting

A new non-academic internship database for social and personality psychology students was one of the many new projects that were approved for funding at the August meeting of the SPSP Board of Directors in Denver.

The initial stages of the project will include surveys of various SPSP constituent groups, followed by the assembly of non-academic internships as a web tool for students. The project is being overseen by SPSP Board Member Linda Skitka and three of her students (Brittany Hanson, Timothy Carsel, and Allison Mueller) leading various phases of the project.

Other takeaways from the meeting:

• Twenty-four new Fellows were accepted as recommended by the Fellows Committee, chaired by Bertram Gawronski. The new fellows are Ozlem Ayduk, Jennifer Beer, Rupert Brown, Fabrizio Butera, Lorne Campbell, Susan Clayton, Nilanjana Dasgupta, Don Forsyth, Emily Impett, Linda Isbell, Robin Kowalski, Colin Leach, Linda Levine, Stephanie Madon, Abigail Marsh, Dominique Muller, Lynn Offermann, Carey Ryan, David Schroeder, Sharon Shavitt, Paschal Sheeran, Jessi Smith, Antonio Terracciano, and Gerben van Kleef.
• Winners in the SPSP Awards of Excellence program were approved
• A Task Force, chaired by Jenny Crocker, was charged with a 360-review of our awards program to ensure that we are focusing our recognition clearly and in the right areas
• The speaker policy for the 2018 convention was amended to allow individuals to present in both science AND skill-based training sessions.
• Contingent upon donor funding, increased the Summer Program for Undergraduate Research to 10 participants for 2017. The Diversity and Climate Committee, chaired by Sapna Cheryan, will oversee the 2017 SPUR program.
• Increased the Small Research Grants pool from $20,000 to $30,000 for 2017
• Approved starting an Annual Campaign in conjunction with the SPSP Foundation, chaired by Harry Reis.
• Provided extensive feedback to the Strategic Planning Task Force creating SPSP’s first Strategic Plan. The Task Force is being chaired by Rich Petty.